


Regroup

by metropolisjournal (TKodami)



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Sex, Blood, Bruce just has a lot of issues, Bruce’s weirdly self-destructive behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Fight Sex, Identity Porn, M/M, Rough Oral Sex, sorry OP :c
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:41:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7522378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TKodami/pseuds/metropolisjournal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of pitting Batman against Superman, Lex Jr. skips over the favs showdown and goes for the gold with Doomsday. Batman, on the other hand, really doesn't need to be pushed into doing anything.</p><p>Written for the <a href="http://dceu-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1491.html?thread=22995#cmt22995">dceu prompt</a>: <em>rough hatesex</em>, but I kind of missed the mark and ended up somewhere different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Desperate Ground

**Author's Note:**

> This story is just an excuse for porn, where plot is just another kind of foreplay (and boy howdy do I love plot). We’re also going to assume that Clark & Lois are just really awesome besties in this.
> 
> With the hugest apologies to William Shakespeare.

* (B) *

Bruce loved the classics. Sun Tzu said: on terrain with no way out, you take the battle to your enemies. 

Superman ripped apart the Batmobile with his bare hands and brought the fight to Gotham City. But the alien hadn't chosen his terrain wisely; Gotham was the Bat's territory, and the Superman had given him time to prepare...

* (B) *

On the day Batman chose to kill the god with the face of a man, an angry squall line that stretched across half the eastern seaboard broke across Gotham city. The Bat-signal slashed through the rain, lurid and taunting against the stormclouds. He stabbed the kryptonite spear into the earth, arranged the field of battle to lead (as he would be inevitably pushed back) to his weapon of last resort.

(He ran through the checklist: sonic emitters; anti-tank artillery; smoke grenades; weaponized kryptonite gas; the kryptonite spear.)

He flexed his wrists in their armored gauntlets. Let the alien come; he was more than prepared to bury the Bat tonight.

Rain sluiced through the narrow channels of the cowl as Bruce tipped his face to the sky. The seal between the armor and his skin was tight, but not waterproof. Water trickled through the cracks, cold as it ran down his spine. Eliminating a future tyrant would be the greatest victory the Batman ever claimed. If it took his heart's blood to do it: so be it. If it required this quiet slight against his dignity (how did the rain manage to slide _there_ past the secondary seal between the neck and the cowl?), then he would give it.

Bruce limbered up his joints to make sure they wouldn't lock up in the heavy suit, and waited in the center of the intensifying storm.

* (B) *

By the time midnight chimed on the Bat’s HUD, disappointment hung over the abandoned courtyard. The signal had shone for hours; aside from a few curious GCPD flatfoots poking around the abandoned major crimes unit (who had been sent scurrying back into the night with an uncivil growl), no one had come.

He tapped the side of his cowl to activate the HUD’s news feed. No active disasters at a national level. Nothing on a worldwide level that (based on Superman’s historical activity patterns) would require hours of the alien’s attention. Some unknown variable had skewed the plan. Had he miscalculated the alien’s anger?

The spotlight flickered and whined as he disengaged the power.

Bruce activated his comms. A gentle click, then the hum of an open connection. No one spoke for a minute in the weighted silence.

"I trust you do not assume I condone your course of action, Master Wayne.”

Alfred’s acerbic tone flooded Bruce with relief. He felt unaccountably glad that he’d been given another chance to share a goodbye that wasn’t as self-serving as his last one in Wayne Manor had been. He wanted to say, _I don’t deserve you_. 

“Never,” Bruce said, instead.

“I am merely relieved to know that I don't have to schedule your funeral. Catering an auditorium-sized crowd is brutal, even for the Wayne name."

Bruce let out a bark of disbelieving laughter. "It’s a temporary stay of execution only, Alfred."

"He didn't show."

"Not very punctual, our alien," Bruce agreed.

"In all of your planning, did you ever reach any insight as to how or where to find _our alien?_ " Alfred returned. 

Bruce felt a mixture of affection and bitter disappointment. Alfred’s sarcasm was as good as forgiveness, but—Bruce’s disappointment in the Bat’s failure was undeniable. The Superman’s motivations had been taken as a given, like a series of simple if-then statements.

(If Bruce challenged Superman’s _the Bat is dead, bury it_ , then he would confront Bruce. 

If Bruce prepared, then he would challenge Superman as equals.

If they were on equal ground, then Bat would kill the Kryptonian.) 

_Stupid_ , Bruce thought. Beyond the Superman’s public appearances, his research into the alien had been utterly stymied. If he was a more paranoid man, he’d believe that the information had been expertly buried by someone who didn’t want information on Superman available to anyone who dug for it. 

(But who would have the subtlety to go toe-to-toe with the Batman? Certainly not the primary-color hero-hopeful.)

He had turned a blind eye to his information deficit, until he had found Lex’s hidden information cache.

(Bruce had smirked when he realized that Lex, too, was only working off public data.)

Among the other metahumans, it had outlined the Superman’s powers and conjectured his weakness…

“Sir, if he’s not going to show, might I suggest returning to the bunker?” 

“He can’t help himself, Alfred,” Bruce answered, trying to claw his way out of the drain his mind was circling. “He has the power, and he acts on it. He cares, but only within limited boundaries. He responds without humor, without emotion. When his life is on the line, everything else becomes irrelevant. When his authority is questioned, he responds with hostile action. He should have—” 

Bruce’s voice cracked, ugly, as he felt the depth of his failure. He was a detective, first and foremost; yet he’d failed to ascertain something as basic as Superman’s motivations. He aimed for conciliatory, and fell into marginally-less-harsh-than-usual. "Check the military frequencies. If there's an event that I don't know about, I need—"

He was halfway across the courtyard to retrieve the kryptonite spear, when a frisson of warning pulled Bruce up short.

He turned back towards the Metropolis skyline. Unearthly harmonics washed the sky to a green pale. The _wrong_ of it itched under his skin.

Any theorizing on the phenomenon's origin halted when lightning that had nothing to do with the storm cut across the sky.

"An explosion in Metropolis--" Bruce murmured. 

"It's the Kryptonian ship--!"

A streak faster than thought cut through the storm clouds, tearing them apart with unimaginable force.

"Will you need the Batwing, sir?"

Bruce shut down the warmth that curled over the sickness in his heart.

"Yes. Now, Alfred. Please."

* (B) *

The night became the third reel of a sci-fi-horror film as an alien trashed Metropolis for the second time in as many years. The Bat catapulted himself out of the Batwing cockpit mid-air, and launched a grapple line to pull himself into a tight arc. He released the line at the apex of his swing, landing heavily at the alien’s back. He recognized Diana at the alien’s side, dressed for war. Bruce drew himself up, pulling the cape tight around his shoulders.

A savage satisfaction crossed Diana’s face. “Now we are three,” she said.

Inside the armor, Bruce’s entire body tensed. To be this close to the alien… His fist clenched involuntarily. The spear was in Gotham, but he could still…

The alien turned to him, haggard and _bleeding_. His eyes warmed just a touch, relief (and gratitude?) mingling in the determined set of his face. Bruce startled, but schooled himself to impassivity. Superman dragged the back of his hand across his lip, as Bruce’s eyes helplessly tracked the motion. 

Superman _bled_. 

Worlds burned to the ground in that moment. Bruce closed his eyes, opened them, and with his preconceived notions of the Superman in tatters, somehow a slightly different reality greeted him.

Superman—far from the remote savoir who hovered over the outstretched hands of terrified mankind—looked young. One of his hands worried the edge of his cape. He sucked at the place where the rest of his blood had pooled, tongue darting into the corner of his mouth. Bruce could not for the life of him find another place to look, as his pulse slammed into overdrive. The god with the face of a man blinked.

“Does this answer your question?” The alien asked, calm as you please, too earnest to be—Bruce’s brain stuttered. Was Superman _joking_ with him?

Bruce settled on asking the only safe question he could think to (what kind of threat did the creature pose?). Diana provided a quick analysis: nearly as strong as a Superman; unable or unwilling to communicate; dead-set on destruction. When Superman suggested flying the creature into space, Bruce rounded on him with contemptuous disbelief.

“Not while it’s still got fight in it. We need to control the field of battle, or we've already lost.”

The alien seemed to understand the source of Bruce’s frustration, transparent as the walls of his lake house. He crossed his arms, and Bruce thought he looked oddly vulnerable. “I underestimated Zod. I won’t repeat that mistake.”

The alien had miscalculated his ability to contain a foe of similar or greater strength. So Superman hadn’t been uncaring; he was just _ill-prepared_. The Bat knew which he considered the greater sin.

“Taking the battle out of the atmosphere—I could save lives,” the alien insisted.

Diana’s shoulders rose and fell in a silent sigh. Bruce could only imagine what she thought. “Do you have an alternate strategy, Knight?”

Bruce shifted his gaze from Diana back to Superman. He couldn’t forgive the alien, he couldn’t give up his all-consuming anger: it was too familiar, too old, calcified over older despair (pearls scattering in a dark alley, a bloody crowbar dropped in a pool of water). Power corrupted all of the good men it touched in this world. But as Bruce watched the abomination roar, spew its death-born light into the sky, a new anger took hold. This was Bruce’s goddamn world: no _monsters_ would be tolerated here.

Bruce re-calibrated his mission parameters in an instant. “Contain, subdue, kill,” Bruce snapped, as he reassessed the battlefield.

“I’d love an idea about how to do any of those things,” Superman said, with a touch of genuine warmth.

“I’ll let you know,” Bruce returned with a half-smirk. Their banter came so easily. Under any other circumstances, Bruce would say that he was flirting.

 _Unreal_ , he thought.

The uneasy alliance scattered, and the fight began in earnest.

* (B) *

“We have a problem,” Bruce growled, as he watched the creature’s power levels climb in his HUD. Moments later, he was surrounded on both sides, as Diana and the alien formed a wall around him. A blast of energy lashed the air, and Bruce’s teeth clenched, angry and helpless and burning to _kill something_.

“I could contain it in the scout ship—”

Bruce suppressed the sarcasm that threatened to spill over his dispassionate assessment of _how completely idiotic_ the alien could be.

"Distract the beast," Diana said. Bruce knew a command when he heard one. So, apparently, did Superman. The alien tipped his head once, and re-engaged the creature.

"Knight," she said moving into his line of sight, pulling his attention away from the earth-shaking clash of fist against flesh. "What are your resources? Do you have anything that can—" her eyes flicked back towards the battlefield. _Kill his kind_ , was the unspoken part of the question.

Bruce’s containment plan unspooled in his mind, hiccuping and racing ahead a little drunkenly. The Gotham docks were two square miles of deserted warehouses. Bruce had intimidated, cajoled, bribed the area clear for his plan tonight.

"Lead them both to Gotham," Bruce yelled, sprinting toward the Batwing.

Diana rejoined the fray with an exultant shout. A second later, Superman hovered next to the open canopy of the plane. Bruce punched in the startup sequence on the engine, and before Superman could ask the question so clearly on the tip of his tongue, Bruce cut in: "Is it Kryptonian?"

Superman turned from him, and narrowed his eyes at the beast as Diana parried its blows with her shield. "It's cellular structure appears to be more similar to mine, and more dissimilar to yours. It’s mostly Kryptonian."

Faint but definite surprise floored him. Had he just read the creature’s DNA at a distance, with his eyes? Bruce couldn’t help himself: “Lex’s files on the Superman were criminally uninformed.”

Superman jerked his head back to Bruce, and looked at him with the same penetrating gaze. The emotions that crossed the alien’s face in the slow march of epochs: wonderment, confusion, (fond?) disbelief.

This was it. His big advantage, gone in an instant if he offered—"I have a weapon that might work," Bruce said quickly, before he could talk himself out of it.

"Bruce—" he murmured, the subsided. Bruce struggled to keep shock from registering on his face. The alien knew? What did that mean for his—no, not the time to throw himself off that emotional cliff.

"Gotham port," Bruce reiterated, the anger (or something like it) burning high in cheeks. "Bring it there, and I'll kill it."

“Okay,” Superman said.

As easy as that.

As thought Bruce hadn’t just admitted he had planned to kill him.

“Wait—” Bruce’s gauntleted hand shot out to grip Superman’s forearm. He squeezed until he felt the immovable bar of his arm through the armor. “Who are you?”

“Really, Bruce?” The name slid across the Superman’s tongue like silk, tasting it. “Does it matter?”

“It matters,” Bruce ground out. Because if he was going to trade the Earth’s future to stop the destruction now, he would have the alien’s name for it.

“Call me Kal.” Superman lingered. He edged closer, leaning across the Batwing cockpit. He flashed the Bat a small, but genuine smile. In a quiet voice, he said: “Who knew that you’d be saving the world tonight, huh?”

“I had an inkling,” he said dryly.

Alfred’s disbelieving snort as he gunned the engines was his reward.

* (B) *

"Let him come," Bruce whispered into the dark cloister of the decrepit building. His voice rebounded off the walls of the abandoned Major Crimes building. He spared a thought for the engine of the GCPD. For the first ten years as the Batman, he’d taken a stand here against mob corruption, the Joker, countless freaks in costumes and the men who sought to master Gotham. He hefted the spear into his hands, and waited for his unlikely allies to bring him a monster beyond anything he had faced in the cowl.

Alfred's voice cut into the comms channel. "You shall live, Master Wayne, and tell him in his grave, 'thus thou dies'? Will you kill him after you dispatch your current problem?"

Bruce stared at his hands numbly.

“That’s not the plan anymore.”

The building seethed and shuddered as a god and its monster smashed into the pavement outside.

“Moment of truth, Alfred.”

“You were never meant to slay gods, Master Wayne.”

The Bat grinned; he very much disagreed.

* (B) *

Bruce’s shoulder screamed its pain as he held the kryptonite spear steady, and drove it further into the beast. Diana held it at bay with her lasso, its arms tangled up in the impossible golden rope. He felt the moment when Diana’s hold went slack, and Bruce knew that his moment had come. This was the death he hadn’t prepared for, but was ready to accept in its place. Bruce’s mind spun through all of his unfinished plans, undone by his arrogance.

He heard the whizz-hiss of the grenade launcher.

And a second before the kryptonite gas could impact, he felt himself caught up in impossibly strong arms, air biting his cheeks as the momentum rocketed them through the ceiling of the MCU. From their dizzy height, Bruce could see the shadows of the building obliterated by a spectacular discharge of light that tore through concrete, steel. Superman held him at arm's length, his grip tight on Bruce’s wrists, as if they were wrestling in the air. Or expecting Bruce to land a blow on his face at any moment.

“You meant to kill me tonight,” he ground out, as they flew away from the explosion, but not as fast as Bruce had seen him move. The tone wasn’t accusing; it was utterly exhausted.

An idea curled through Bruce’s mind. He hadn’t seen the fight between the monster and the Superman, but he suspected it had taken _everything_ for him to deliver the creature to the Gotham docks.

Bruce tested the theory. He yanked his arm, hard, from the alien’s grip.

Superman lost his grip, then chased after his wrist to re-capture it. Bruce broke the hold on his other arm. He was weak! Only as strong as a (very) strong human. But Bruce knew how to use an enemy’s strength against them. Bruce twisted mid-air, and crashed into Superman’s midsection. 

Unable to hold Bruce or himself in the sky, they plunged toward the ground. The suit cushioned most of the impact, and Kal grunted wetly as he took the rest of the Bat’s weight.

His mission parameters slotted back into the groove they expected the night to take, like a river returning to its course. His blood was up from anger or its nearest equivalent. Violence rolled off of him like a miasma. He shoved off first, gripped Kal’s hair and pulled his head back. The column of Kal’s throat worked. The rain had stopped, and Bruce felt an odd disappointment that he wouldn’t be able to trace a droplet of water as it raced down and through the grooves of his skin.

“I did,” and he smashed a fist into that perfect face.

Kal’s head whipped around, and more blood spilled down his lips. It didn’t even take kryptonite to break his skin, now.

“You’re a mess from the fight,” Bruce hummed, his body running on pure instinct.

“Bruce,” Kal gasped. “We don’t have to do this.”

The path in front of them was all broken concrete, churned up from their fall, or from the fight that drew the creature to Gotham. Bruce advanced, as Kal (uncharacteristically) retreated back across it.

“I had one goal tonight, Kal,” Bruce seethed. “You had your out. You could have let me—” he doesn’t, can’t say _die_ , not yet.

Kal stopped, drew himself up to full height, and lunged unsteadily at Bruce.

“No!” Kal said as his hands closed over the cowl desperately. “I couldn’t have! Do you understand nothing, _Batman_?”

“I understand power, _Superman_ —” Bruce threw the title back in the alien’s face. “I understand that you’re not a man. I understand that if there’s even the slightest chance that you decide it’s easier to impose your will, than be guided by our consent—”

“No one else dies,” Kal said. “No one!”

In one smooth motion, he tore the cowl off of the suit. That show of strength cost him, as Kal stumbled back with the helmet in his hands.

The biting cold as his sweat-slick skin was exposed to the night air shocked Bruce out of his anger for just one moment. It was enough for Kal to regain his feet, for his face to become grim. He hovered a foot off the ground. He looked every inch the Son of Krypton. Past exhaustion, past reason, the blood sang in Bruce’s veins. He would do anything to chase that feeling.

Anything.

Bruce crouched and leapt, his fist clanging against Kal’s skin. Superman’s head snapped back as he grabbed Bruce, and rolled them into a clumsy throw. It took only a twist of his body, and Bruce landed on top again. Kal groaned then, long and low.

“If you wanted it, I’d be dead already,” Kal said, his voice full of some unnamed emotion. “Bruce!” he gasped.

The comm cracked in his ear. Alfred had heard some of the worst moments of Bruce’s life broadcast across the two-way device, and never once broken their code of non-interference. Apparently the world’s hero begging (for his life?) was one line too far. “Master Wayne”—Alfred’s cold fury cut through Bruce’s emotional haze—“did you not _just_ tell me that this wasn’t your plan?”

“I know that!” Bruce snapped, at Alfred, or Kal, he wasn’t sure. But he ripped the comm out of his ear, and flung it away from him.

“You’re not a man,” he seethed at Kal, as he brought a hand up to his throat. That beautiful throat. “You’re—you’re—”

He pressed his face into the hollow of Kal’s neck, and inhaled. Sweat, and fire, and blood. He smelled glorious.

“In all of your days to come, I want you to remember—my hand—at your throat”—his voice cracked. There was no time to hear the alarm bells slamming into Bruce’s conscious mind, he’d already gone too far—and then he had nothing left to give, no anger left to sustain him, and he broke under that unbearable lightness.

He bent to the divot in his collarbone, and dipped his tongue against the skin. It felt faintly warm, and it tasted—just as he imagined it would.

Bruce moaned like a man who had nothing left to lose.

Kal made the most confused, half-strangled noise in reply.

Licking the path that a trail of blood had taken, from collarbone to the apex of his jaw, Bruce decided that he wasn’t _like_ a man who had nothing left to lose; in this moment, he simply did not care if he lost what little remained to him.

Kal cried out _Bruce!_ again, and bucked so hard he threw them up into the air.

He had every expectation that Kal would let him drop, but he found himself caught up in his arms again, held tight against his chest. He’s deadly silent, and Bruce was too. Superman’s strength was returning (or was he burning up what was left?), the grip constricting second by second. Squeezed to death. Somehow fitting: a ridiculous death for a man with the hubris to kill a god... And by god, but this silence was killing him.

“Say something!” Bruce seethed.

“Can you just—shut-up?” and Kal crashed their mouths together. Bruce opened to him, almost by rote. His brain hadn’t quite caught up with the latest development. Kal… wanted this? Him?

Yeah, okay. He was ready for this too.

It was the hardest discipline of warfare, one he had mastered years ago. Bruce rolled his shoulders under the now-familiar suit: inhaled, exhaled. One by one he dismissed all thought of the outside world (Diana, the monster, Alfred) for this new battlefield.

The Bat's preternatural calm descended.

All regrets in their own time.

He pulled back from the frantic kiss, and his smile was all of the Bat’s.

“Oh,” Kal breathed out, reverently, his eyes widening in revelation.

“Oh,” the Bat repeated, and shoulder-checked Kal out of the air. As they fell (and he was more right than not, Kal was operating under a depleted reserve of strength), the Bat shot out a grapple line to catch the nearest roof, caught Kal around the waist, and swung them both into a rough, frantic tumble across the deserted warehouse.

He laid a hand over the crest on Superman’s chest, and Kal—his pupils dilated, his mouth slack—was shattered by lust.

Yes, _finally_ they fought on equal ground. The Bat had brought the battle to the enemy. He leaned down and took the kryptonian’s mouth, as his body sang with triumph.

* (B) *

“Coward,” Kal taunted, when they parted for air.

The Bat only grinned in response.

“You’re wearing a mask. Take it off,” the alien commanded, as his hand ghosted over the side of Bruce’s uncovered face. His other hand was shoved between their bodies, scrabbling for the catches on the Bat’s armor.

The Bat shook his head. No. No. Oh no. The mask he was wearing was deeper than metal or skin.

He saw the moment when Kal noticed his fist swinging towards his face. He had pulled the punch, delivered it at half-speed. Kal ducked out of its path, reconsidered, and then resumed his original position. The fist smashed into skin denser than any human’s; the Bat’s knuckles throbbed indignantly.

“Let me see that,” Kal murmured, bringing it up to his face and squinting at it. He turned the armored hand over, and swept his gaze from heel to fingertips. “Is bruising your knuckles foreplay to you?

The Bat recoiled, and Kal let him whip the hand out of his grasp. They squared off in front of each other, their chests the barest inch apart. He was breathing heavily, and Kal—Kal looked nothing like a god.

Kal rested a hand against his chest, softly. “How does—” he took a deep breath, panting the difficulty of the question. Difficult! For Him! Kal made everything seem effortless, even desire. “—the armor come off?”

(It had been years since the Bat had spoken without the voice changer. The odd rasp of the Bat’s voice tasted like gravel in his throat.)

“I wanted to kill you tonight Kal,” the Bat said, as though it was an answer. His eyes devoured Kal, and saw the shiver the voice sent through his spine. Good. It eased the squirming discomfort deep in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t the only one out of control here. “I still might.”

“What—?” Kal was cut off suddenly as the Bat slammed his shoulder into the center of his chest. He put as much weight into it as he could, and they rocketed across the rooftop, and smashed through the skylight. Superman’s cape fluttered up around them. It cocooned them as they smashed through to the warehouse floor. Glass and wood showered the red cloth. In the space between the cape and the floor, he breathed Kal’s air. Their chests rose and fell against each other. 

Bruce looked up into Kal’s face, as the kryptonian unwrapped his arms from around his neck. Kal had cushioned his fall. Because Kal didn’t want him dead. _Idiot._

“Feel better?” He asked, humor dancing in his eyes.

“Fight back,” the Bat snarled, dizzy with lust.

“You like it that I don’t,” Kal whispered hotly in his ear, and god, yes, Bruce was so hard he could barely see straight. His hand groped out to find the edge of Kal’s face, and he slammed his head into the nearest crate.

Or at least, that was the plan. He couldn’t even budge the kryptonian. It felt like he was pressing against the gravity of a planet.

Bruce’s pulse hammered in his veins, and he knew, it was going to happen here, now, there was no stopping it. His fingers found to the catches inside of his gauntlets, and disengaged them. They fell to the floor with a portentous thunk. His hands were on top of Kal’s in a second, snaking them over the surface of his armor, pressing the kryptonian’s fingers into all of the invisible places where the suit came apart. The armor peeled away in sections, leaving Bruce in his black, skin-tight undersuit.

Kal licked his lips, and gave him a tight look promising dark, vicious things if he so much as tried to throw a punch now.

Hot fingers raked over his erection, and Bruce flared his nostrils. The fabric was heat-proof, designed to reduce friction and compress his muscles. Through it, he had _felt_ Kal’s desire.

“Touch me,” Bruce groaned. “Let me feel your fingers,”

Kal frowned. He said slowly, as though he was worried Bruce was missing a key piece of information. “I am touching you. Right now.”

“No, goddamnit,” Bruce tried to tug Superman’s hands to the uncovered skin of face. “Let me,” in a tone that was _not_ a whine.

Kal relented. Bruce slid the palm of the man’s hand over his bare skin, and he could _feel_ it now—the deep, burning core of heat that had been tepid only minutes before. Bruce felt his skin scald under the touch. He nuzzled into it like a warmth-starved cat.

“How do you take off the suit?” The Bat rasped, because finally, everything inside of Bruce was on-board with this plan. He would fuck the kryptonian in the warehouse. He couldn’t stop himself at this point. Kal would have to stop him, if he didn’t want this.

Slowly, Kal’s hands trailed up to his shield, and he depressed it with his fingers. The suit tiled across his skin, peeling up in small pentagons, revealing inch after inch of unblemished flesh.

Bruce’s head bounced, as he fell to his knees. Lust choked out the last of his reason. He kneeled on ground that he would not cede. 

The suit tessellated over hips, chest, the shockingly deep v below Kal’s abdominals. He had wondered how much of the physique was stylized armor, how much of it was his body; now, Bruce had the answer.

Kal held up a miniature version of his crest that normally sat on his chest, complete naked. He tossed it into the tangle of the Bat’s armor and his cape. Bruce groaned as if Kal had physically touched him. He felt his erection strain against his undersuit, the strange frictionless slip of the material over his cock.

“You have the oddest kinks, _Batman_ ,” Kal teased. His body language had turned oddly shy, as though he had expected Bruce’s hands to be all over him right away. Bruce balled his hands into fists on his thighs, pinching deep into his own flesh. As haze-soaked as he was with desire, Bruce waited. It there was any mastery to be had over his body, it was for Bruce to wait for some goddamn permission to touch.

“It was always going to end up this way,” The Bat said. “When god meets man, one of them has to be on their knees.”

He smirked then, all Bruce Wayne.

Kal’s spine drew tight like a bowstring. “Your mouth on me,” Kal ground out. “ _Now._ ”

Bruce’s hands slid up the man’s thighs, the smooth expanse of skin achingly pliant under his hands. He dug his fingers into the skin, and surprised himself by finding that Kal’s flesh let him.

“Don’t mistake this for surrender,” he warned, then braced himself against the ground, and swept Kal’s feet with a rough-and-dirty hook-kick. They crashed to the ground together, and Bruce got his mouth around Kal’s length and swallowed it down.

Kal arched up, his jaw working itself soundlessly open, shocked by the pleasure of it, then thrust up sharply into the waiting heat of Bruce’s mouth. The force of Kal’s thrust stunned him, but he kept his jaw around his cock, rode out the thrust, then pulled back with a long, trailing stroke of his tongue.

“Bruce,” Kal cried out brokenly.

Bruce grabbed at one of Kal’s hands, and shoved it into his hair, showing him how to grip Bruce’s head. Obligingly, Kal curled his fingers, but he only carded his fingers, feather-light, through the sweat-slicked strands. Christ. This gentleness was a gut-punch.

He reared back, and used both of his hands to shove Kal where he wanted him to go. He wanted that crate. He had ideas about that crate. Kal landed heavily on it, and it splintered under the force of their combined weight. Kal threw his head back and laughed, delightedly. He pushed them off it without even touching ground.

Oh god, but that was hot. He bobbed on Kal’s cock, and swallowed him down as deeply as he could.

He slapped at Kal’s thigh, who tensed, and fuck, it felt like he was slapping a girder. That wrist would need a splint tomorrow.

“Sorry, sorry,” Kal bit out.

Bruce gave him another good smack, and he reveled in the feel of Kal’s flesh giving way under his hand. Kal bucked forward, driving his cock deep into Bruce’s throat, and that’s exactly what he wanted. Kal tried to slide out, but Bruce just smacked him to drive back in.

Finally, Kal got it, and set up a steady rhythm of shallow, but powerful thrusts that scraped his throat raw.

He felt tension build in Kal’s body, felt his cock swell impossibly larger, and then spasm. Bruce pulled back, letting a few threads of come spill down his chin. Bruce slid back to sit on his heels. He had a question about that, he was sure, something searching and profound about Kryptonian sexual biology, but all he could think was that he surely was broken, as he burned to do that again. With Kal. Now. Yes. Why was it so hard to think?

He rolled his shoulders, and with a controlled swallow, he angled his face away from Kal. He kept his voice steady. Kal didn’t need to know this was the only thing he’d done tonight that had terrified him. Turning his back, willing, to his enemy. To his—his—Lightheaded, he didn’t even need an affectation for the Bat’s voice this time. “Unzip me,” he growled.

Kal’s hands slid up over his shoulders. “You’re shaking,” he whispered against Bruce’s hair.

“That’s because I need you to get me out of this goddamn suit—”

“No, Bruce, you’re—” a hitching of his breath, and in that span of time, Bruce wondered what Kal had seen. “—You’re going into shock. Your temperature’s dropping.”

He hadn’t sustained any injuries, had he? The fight with the monster flickered through his mind. Something trickled down his face. He swiped roughly at it with the heel of his hand. It came away bloody, and dripping.

“Bruce! Bruce!” He felt hands framing his face, gentle hands, infinitely careful hands.

“Alfred,” he said as clearly as he could, and then he surrendered to darkness.


	2. Scattering Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing Bruce saw when he opened his eyes was the winter sun slanting through a curtain of fog. He had no memory of the flight to the lake house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be: h/ without a lot of c, robots, Bruce being in way over his head, identity porn. Heartfelt thanks to my beta [susiecarter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter) who has tamed my prose; all errors remaining in the fic are entirely of my own making. 
> 
> William Shakespeare would be so proud to know that straight from Laertes mouth, I have used his most famous play to provide dialog inspiration. Edith Wharton would probably be less proud, but only just.

* (B) *

Bruce had the impression of being gathered up in strong arms--or maybe he only dreamed it. The air had the familiar tang of the Gotham seaside, and the arms were careful. Like the thing they carried was fragile. Wind whipped past his face as a chill began to set in his bones. He was tucked against something warm, but heat still leeched away from his skin faster than it could be replaced. 

His thoughts scattered.

He remembered Sun Tzu.

Deep in an enemy's territory, linked together, men will fight without compulsion. They will follow discipline--they will follow devotion--and even to the death, they will not retreat. The Bat was the bulwark against the Superman; men stood fast against gods in capes, their faces contorted in furious passion. The Bat never surrendered.

But another memory crowded in, of Superman leaning across the cockpit of the Batwing, his smile small and private; and because against all odds, he didn't fear or hate you--he answered, _call me Kal_ , his trust shining like sunlight. Bruce held onto that thought, until it too slipped from him in the dark.

* (B) *

The first thing Bruce saw when he opened his eyes was the winter sun slanting through a curtain of fog. Alarm thrummed through his body. _Doomsday. Diana, clear the field. Where’s Kal._ He readied the spear and-- He lurched forward, grabbing his knees, as his chest heaved. He felt a cool trickle across his cheek and he wiped viciously at his nose, expecting it to come away bloody. Bruce stared at his fingers. Water. He rubbed at his eyes, and frowned when he found them dry.

He had no memory of the flight here, but Kal must have--must have--

Bruce chanted a Nepalese mantra until his breathing steadied. 

Obviously Kal had flown him here, knew where he lived. _Not a disaster_ , Bruce reminded himself forcefully. He’d find a way to control that information later. 

“Kal,” he called out. He voice sounded like it was scraped out of a barrel. He cleared his throat, but his voice cracked when he tried again. “Al--fred.”

Bruce braced himself against the mattress with his bad wrist, the one he’d broken last night. It didn’t even twinge. Alfred must have given him the good stuff. 

He startled when he realized he was touching the metal bar of a hospital bed. Pushing himself onto his feet, his calves screamed bloody agony at him and locked up. Bruce caught the railing before he landed on his face. His entire body felt numb, and hazily, Bruce was aware that something wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t dressed like Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, waking up from an evening of overindulgence. Something tight clung to his skin. He barely registered the black material--the Lycra undersuit that he wore beneath his armor--before movement outside caught his attention. 

He limped toward the glass wall, and leaned against it. 

A gentle breeze stirred the brome on the near bank, and the trees on the far shore groaned with the weight of the snow. The stone floor glinted in blue and purple tones, bathing the bed in a gentle but cold glow. Over the silent cries of kingfishers darting across the lake, he watched the mist rise in slow but powerful waves. The shadows deepened, sharply angled across the narrow deck. 

It was evening. He’d slept all day then, maybe even through the next day. 

He scrubbed his hand across his face, chasing that moisture he’d felt before, but his skin was bone-dry. Smooth, too--not even a hint of stubble covered his chin. 

Bruce pieced together what he knew. Doomsday was dead, and his allies were alive. He’d fainted after the battle under--unusual circumstances. Alfred hadn’t had to cut through his undersuit, so he couldn’t have been too badly injured. His stubble hadn’t even come in, so he was within an acceptable window for loss of time. He probably wouldn’t patrol tonight, anyway. A downed alien hostile meant increased military activity in the city, National Guard checkpoints. Patrol had been hell after the World Engine Incident, and that hadn’t even touched Gotham. 

And then, because he couldn’t stop it, his mind spooled through the fight with Kal on the roof of the warehouse. That impossible tension that had snapped between them. Bruce leaning down, down, down, his tongue curling against sweat-soaked skin; Kal arching up to meet him, his breath caught in a wordless moan. Eighteen months of planning gone sideways…in circumstances that Bruce was certain were impossible to replicate. Under normal circumstances, Kal wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Kal _wouldn’t_. Full stop. 

The fog lifted, but a persistent grayness covered the lakeshore. His mind felt sluggish. Hazy. And the back of his throat stung, antiseptic and coppery. 

They’d killed the beast, and saved the world. So why, Bruce wondered, did it feel like failure?

* (B) *

When he was sure his legs wouldn’t give out, Bruce trekked back to the narrow hospital bed. He reached over to his nightstand--painkillers, booze, anything from the night prior. Evenings like this needed a stiff drink, or a deadening of his nerves. He must have broken his wrist against that bloody Kryptonian--

(He pointedly did not think about _how_ it had broken.)

\--and the old pain of the ripped-out cartilage in his knee did him no favors when the weather turned. His hands ran across a metal surface that was shockingly unfamiliar. 

Two realizations occurred simultaneously: aside from the agony in his calves, his body felt strangely light. His knees were a little stiff, but otherwise...fine. The second was that his room had been completely transformed while he slept off the Doomsday fight. The paintings had been stripped from the wall, the nightstands and lamps evacuated. The only things left were the hospital bed and the strange metal object under his hand. 

Even now, with the adrenaline haze of his nightmares fading, Bruce felt the prickle on the back of his neck. Something was _watching_ him. 

Bruce whirled quickly, expecting to see the Kryptonian. His calves protested again and he gripped the strange metal surface hard enough to bend chrome. 

This surface didn’t budge. It made a whirring noise, the clicking of tiny internal rotors. Then it _shifted_.

“Is further assistance required for unit designated Bruce Wayne?” a melodious voice inquired.

Bruce looked down at the metal surface. His hand slid off, as it hovered up to eye level, metal plates expanding to reveal a long, metal tentacle-arm that was, against all odds of sanity or logic, clutching a Hello Kitty polysomnogram. 

Bruce stared at the floating alien tech, and he had the distinct impression it was (politely?) waiting for his response. 

“This is…new,” he said at last. 

* (B) *

Bruce and the Kryptonian drone squared off against each other, Bruce’s mind stuck on the sheer incongruity of the pinnacle of Kryptonian technology, thousands of years in advance of humanity, and the cheerful pink-and-white medical screen that was displaying a crude thumbs-up in its blocky LCD.

Bruce reached for an answer. When all else failed... “No further assistance is required,” he said, coolly. 

The metal tentacle-arm inched towards Bruce’s forehead, lightly touched it, and then withdrew. He had the surreal feeling that it was doing the Kryptonian robot equivalent of feeling his temperature with the back of its hand. It formed a small USB hook-up, and plugged it into the polysomnogram to feed it new data. 

“We have registered a change in your underlying brain patterns. Unit Bruce Wayne is now awake. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Bruce said, a bit helplessly. 

He blinked for good measure. The world didn’t reform itself. He was not, in fact, dreaming this. 

(Hallucination was still on the table.)

“I will inform the--” --the final word was in a dialect that Bruce didn’t understand. A metal film flicked down over the blue apertures that looked like a very stylized face. A series of blue pulses traveled up its casing. It communicated silently with whomever was on the other end. 

Bruce was _not_ grateful for the break in conversation. His surmises darkened with every turn around the available facts. He was alone, unarmed, unaware in his home. He had been unconscious for long enough to require medical monitoring, and in an unusual enough state for Alfred to allow unfamiliar tech into the lakehouse. A Kryptonian drone attended him, and apparently reported his status to Kal, who was--not here? Where was Alfred? Why was he allowing this? 

_Was he wrong about how long had he been unconscious?_

“ _Ehworehth khuhp w khuhtov Zyvehsh_,” the drone announced. 

“What’s that in playboy?” Bruce said with a sharp edge, all teeth and fake charm. 

“I have transmitted my report to _Zyvehsh_ ,” the drone repeated. Bruce didn’t understand the word, but he got the tone of it well enough: _owner, master_. “Apologies, unit Bruce Wayne. Language module damaged in crash.” 

“Is he here?” Bruce demanded, drawing himself up to his full height. He felt naked without his cape. 

“He will await you within the hour,” it said smoothly.

Bruce attempted to untangle that sentence in his mind. Was Kal going to be here in about an hour--or was Kal expecting him to come--arrive, _arrive_ in an hour? If Kal was going to leave his tech lying about Bruce’s bedroom like he owned the place, Bruce was going to have a short, forceful conversation about upgrading the translation matrix on the drone. 

Unconsciously, he ran a hand over his neck, tracing the path his own tongue had taken down Kal’s throat, the thrill of him crying out in confusion. Need. The astringent taste of ash and briny sea air on that smooth skin. Smoother than human, warming under his hands until it burned as bright as a star against Bruce’s mouth… Bruce breathed deeply through his nose. Christ.

Like a wounded tiger, he retreated into the shade to protect himself from an unexpectedly difficult opponent. He found himself in the lengthening shadows in the room, and he stared down the drone. 

“Is Kal already at or near the house?” he asked again, trying to wring clarity from the mangled language module. 

“My proximity sensors are only programmed for the units of this household, unit Bruce Wayne. At this time interval, _Zyvehsh_ is normally located on the continent, designation Antarctica.” 

Bruce didn’t respond. 

_Antarctica_. Kal had fucked off to Antarctica. Another piece of information that Bruce hadn’t discovered about the Kryptonian. Who was conducting clean-up in Metropolis and Gotham? Who gave the alien _the right_ to hide when the world goddamn needed him? And suddenly, he was angry, madder than he’d ever been. His anger from their fight had been working away under the surface of his thoughts, waiting to emerge fully formed. 

He clenched and unclenched his fists as he stared down the metal face. Silence stretched out between them, as Bruce’s rage reached its breaking point. He channeled that anger into tactical assessment, methods of restraint that would work based on its points of articulation, and he waited. 

The drone decided that the conversation was finished, and it turned to glide out of the bedroom. 

Bruce coiled and used the strange lightness to leap across the distance. The drone chirped in alarm. “Unit Bruce Wayne, please desist!” It sounded panicked. 

An arm-bar wouldn’t work across a non-biological enemy, but a modified version of it restrained the tentacle arm. Bruce twisted violently to dodge a mild restraining bolt, and his legs screamed their protest. He wrangled the drone into his arms, and wrenched downward. The energy weapon groaned, then snapped off. The drone fought to dislodge him, yawing to the side. Bruce pressed it inexorably against the wood paneling of bathroom wall until the veneer cracked under the pressure.

“Listen, you floating tin can,” Bruce said, low and dangerous, and miraculously, it stopped struggling and _listened_. 

(It had been programmed to care about what Bruce wanted. Bruce felt a small stab of emotion, which he ignored.) 

Certain he would be obeyed, he allowed himself the small luxury of an idle threat, as he didn’t know if his tech could even cut into the metal alloys the Kryptonians used. “Shut up, and take me to Alfred before I decide my next pet project will be coring out your internal processors.” 

The drone obeyed. It bobbed, and lurched to the side.

Bruce stumbled, catapulted unceremoniously into the living room and into a much more pressing set of problems than discovering the means to dismantle one recalcitrant hunk of sentient metal. 

* (B) *

The first problem Bruce discovered was that a dampening field had been set up around his room. 

The field rippled on the edge of his vision. Passing through it, the pressure of suppressed sound hit him like a full-body slap. Man was _not_ meant to live in soundless space. The room warped in a cascade of blue waves. Senses scrambled, he lost contact with time. Seconds or minutes later, when he’d crossed the threshold, the physical disorientation subsided but Bruce’s unease remained. Just how much new tech had Alfred or Kal, or both, set up in the lakehouse while he played Sleeping Beauty? 

As he regained his equilibrium on the other side of the field, he realized his second and third and fourth problems were, in all probability, one very complex problem that couldn’t be solved by punching.

He heard loud voices arguing with each other through the glass walls, one of which was as familiar as the day was long. Alfred and another man--Bruce’s stomach sank when he realized it wasn’t a WayneCorp employee--were on the veranda. Both of them looked, by turns, defeated and pissed off. Alfred turned, a wan, disbelieving tightness around his mouth. Interrupted mid-harangue. From the disgruntled look, he was probably about to drop his coup-de-grace on whatever poor, deserving soul had crossed him. That wasn’t Bruce’s problem (yet).

His problem was that he was standing undressed in front of a glass wall where a face that wasn’t Alfred was making a fish-gaping O of recognition. That face belonged to a reporter, who pushed his glasses back up his nose as though he’d just gotten the scoop of the century. Bruce had met him once, at Lex’s library charity, and he’d hounded Bruce relentlessly about the bat vigilante. The newshound had almost caught him in Lex’s server room, but by the time Bruce had slipped out, he’d vanished on the trail of another lead. If anyone was going to add Bruce Wayne and bored billionaire together to get Batman, it would be him. 

Bruce could melt back into his bedroom, brush it off as sleeping in a compression suit. A preening middle-aged billionaire might do just that to keep their figure. It was the latest fitness craze; the lie wouldn’t even be that far-fetched. 

Except that the Kryptonian drone chose that moment to slam into his back. Bruce stumbled fully into the light.

Alfred’s arm came up to physically block the reporter from entering the house. Not that it mattered; they could just as easily see in it as Bruce could see out of it. From behind the barrier of Alfred, the reporter looked his fill, and Bruce felt his jaw set peevishly. 

Problem four presented itself only a moment later, when the reporter’s eyes flicked down to his chest, then back to his face, in a complex play of emotion. 

Bruce followed his eyes down to his chest. He should be safe: the undersuit had no bat-insignia on it. Nothing that would mark it as the Dark Knight’s kit.

Except he wasn’t wearing his undersuit. Problem four. 

He was wearing Kal’s suit. 

Bruce swore creatively.

* (B) *

Whatever indignity had been done to the lakeshore by the addition of the second Wayne house--years before the manor burned down, when Bruce had the idea of living within the long, skeletal grasp of its still-looming towers (and giving its echoing halls over to Gotham Academy as a boarding school)--Bruce felt that karma was being repaid right now. Men who live in glass houses should not nurture fantasies of transparency. 

Long habit allowed Bruce to break the stalemate. Bruce Wayne sauntered over to the double doors, and a disheveled playboy billionaire poked his head out.

“Alfred!” he said brightly, as though waking up at an indecent hour was a normal part of Bruce Wayne’s life--“--Skip breakfast and bring up a bottle of--hello,” he said as the reporter nudged his way around Alfred’s arm. “Have we met?”

“Yes.” The reporter’s eyes dropped to the shield on his chest again, and met his gaze in transparent relief--no doubt because Bruce had saved him from Alfred’s biting commentary. 

Bruce returned the favor. He raked his eyes over the reporter in open consideration. He had an everyman quality: familiar, but unmemorable. Boxframe glasses interrupted his face. Sartorially, nothing noteworthy for white collar work: a well-cut brown coat over rumpled plaid, a striped tie that somehow wasn’t a disaster, black penny loafers that most definitely were. He held his messenger bag in front of him like a shield. Bruce (barely) avoided quirking an eyebrow. Most people didn’t find Bruce Wayne’s eager blandness intimidating. 

“Don’t think I remember you,” Bruce drawled, turning back to Alfred. 

“Master Wayne?” 

Alfred’s entire demeanor was pinched in heavy emotion, even if he didn’t show it on his face. For all of the secrets that were secured by Bruce’s public charade, Alfred never could stand Bruce Wayne’s calculated rudeness. But his voice had gone soft and clipped. Alfred had used that tone in the days after--but Bruce was certain that Jason wasn’t the reason for that softness now. He re-evaluated the severity of his condition. A near miss?

“Oh, I’ll also need the Aston Martin for the--” Bruce fumbled for an appropriate lie. He had carefully not planned anything beyond the fight with the Kryptonian. 

Alfred and the reporter shared an inscrutable look, which put Bruce on edge. 

“The Gotham Children’s Fund,” Alfred filled in after a length of time. 

Bruce leaned heavily against the door. And not just for affectation; his right calf was still spasming like he hadn’t walked on it for days. His voice came out rougher than he’d have liked. “Is that one the Regency or the Empire?”

The reporter stepped forward, and Alfred didn’t stop him this time. “Metropolis Regency, 10pm tomorrow. That’s my beat.” 

“Where are my manners,” Bruce said, and Alfred preemptively scowled. “Bruce Wayne, of Wayne Enterprises.” 

Bruce didn’t extend his hand when the reporter raised his for a handshake. He stared the man down with a half-lidded casual disregard that usually ended with a drink in his face. 

“This is my property, and you’re trespassing.”

The hand shyly withdrew itself behind the shield-slash-messenger bag.

“Clark Kent, Daily Planet,” came the reply, with a small half-smile.

Bruce’s face squeezed into an echo of Alfred’s frown. “There a reason you’re here, son?” 

Kent’s eyes flicked down to the crest on his chest. 

“You really don’t remember me,” he repeated slowly, and half-turned back to Alfred for confirmation. 

It was a trait of honest men that when they felt themselves backed against the wall, they lie and do so poorly because they haven’t acquired the vital life skill of diffusing awkwardness with as much truth as the situation can bear. Bruce had practiced. He could make the truth ring with falsehoood, could give the shine of absolute confession to his basest lies. So when Bruce sucked in his lip, gently bit it and said, “Really don’t.” It wasn’t even dishonest. What did Bruce Wayne know about Clark Kent, except for the heated exchange of opinion that they had once, over drinks, in Lex Luthor’s foyer? Bruce’s expression shone with admission.

“Ah,” Kent said, who did not know Bruce’s lying faces. 

“Oh for Heaven’s sake,” Alfred muttered, who did. 

Clark fiddled with his glasses. “I thought you’d recognize--” 

Alfred threw a hand out, and smashed it into Kent’s, bumping into his frames. Kent had been working up the nerve to pull his glasses off to polish them--a nervous tic, and a bad one at that, by the look of consternation on his face. 

“Now that you’re awake, it’s unseemly not to invite our guest in. Our friend _Mr. Kent_ , of the _Daily Planet_ , who is in fact known to this household and without whose help, we would be in dire straits. Mr. Kent,” Alfred hadn’t removed his hand from where it pinned the glasses to the man’s poor, flustered face. “Why don’t we keep matters simple for now? Join us for some tea.”

It was not a question. 

“Yes. I’d love--” Clark said hastily. “I mean, tea would be fantastic. Thanks, Alfred.” 

“Don’t I get a say in this?”

“No, sir, you don’t.” 

Alfred passed by Bruce, and gave him a stern but silent _behave_ that was no less heard for it being unvoiced. A genuine smile touched Bruce’s face, and he let it. 

Clark gave him one last speculative look as he passed Bruce in the doorway. Bruce finally allowed himself to look down to his own chest, where Kal’s crest caught the weak rays of evening sun, transforming the silver material into something luminous. The black fabric cascaded over his form and shimmered when he moved--except at the cuffs and the detailing over the ribs. 

As he breathed, it rose and fell with his chest. 

It...didn’t leave anything to the imagination.

“Some costume party, huh,” Bruce joked, as his hand absently stroked the material across his forearm. He hadn’t even known there was a black version of the suit. The color seemed wrong for Kal, somehow. 

“Very realistic,” Clark agreed, half-amused, half-horrified. His brow folded up in thought. “Does Superman really look like that in person?”

“Heh, no.” Bruce smirked, unable to suppress the image of the suit cascading over the sharp cleft of Kal’s hip. “He looks even better.” 

Bruce followed on his heels, trying to convince himself that the breathless pause after his quip was simply part of the act. 

* (B) *

Alfred bustled around the kitchenette like a polite dictator. He directed the reporter to reach the good china on the high shelf, and looked seconds away from pressing Bruce into service. Chagrined, Bruce slipped away from the domestic scene. It was bizarre enough to watch Alfred playing house without indulging in that fantasy himself. 

He endured the barrier again to fetch a dressing gown from the bedroom closet. The gown was from Bruce Wayne’s half of the wardrobe; naturally, it fell open at the pecs, showing off the shield in all of its Superman-approved glory. He touched the crest, skimming his fingers across it like Kal had done. 

(long fingers caressing the bottom point, and sliding up, up, up into the two spaces between the S, and then--) 

The suit remained inert.

He plucked at the fabric over his stomach. All at once, pain like an icepick lanced through his armpit. 

Bruce doubled over, and gasped through the agony. The material slipped from his fingers, and stretched back over his skin with a melodious _twang_. The pain subsided, a stitch in his side the only sign that he'd been fighting to breathe a moment ago. 

“I get it,” Bruce muttered. “The suit stays on.”

On his way out, he found a touch-activated biometric reader on the wall next to the cracked wooden veneer where he'd slammed the drone. He slotted his hand over the interface, and the field deactivated with an audible _thunk_. How the hell had he missed _that_? 

* (B) *

When he returned to the living room, Bruce almost tripped against the Kryptonian drone. It had hung back in the shadow of the room divider. He couldn’t be sure the reporter hadn’t seen it, but the shadow was awfully deep, and he seemed engrossed in one of Alfred’s picaresque tales. 

No reason to tempt fate, he decided. Bruce motioned at the machine to hide itself in his room. 

The tentacle-arm wiggled the polysomnogram at him again, and motioned in the direction of Alfred and the reporter. 

Bruce slashed vigorously across his throat, hoping it meant _cut it the fuck out_ in Kryptonian as well. Bingo. The drone peevishly resumed an inert form. In the context of his spartan living room, the rounded metal hexagon looked like a piece of modernist art, or a very non-functional end table.

The metal surface rippled in a cascade of smaller hexagonals, until the polysomnogram appeared on its surface. That was...less easily explainable, but still fine. 

The pink and white screen flashed. It read: **`D: D: D:`**

Great. He was being back-sassed by an end table. 

Bruce blew out a frustrated breath, and pinched his brow. He was losing contact with his character. Bruce Wayne wasn’t being harassed by alien emoticons in his own goddamn home-- and really he was going to have words with whomever had taught the drone. That wasn’t a problem that even existed in his world. Bruce Wayne wouldn’t care if he was caught hungover in a costume, so he shouldn’t. Bruce loosened the belt, and let the gown fall open to his navel. By the time he’d fought his irritation back to an acceptable level and turned to his “guest”, Alfred had set a tea service in the living room. 

* (B) *

The three men drank tea on the low, uncomfortable living room set. Alfred had chosen this furniture years ago to make the place seem too sleek for entertaining, too streamlined for practical use. Alfred and Kent sat a shoulder-length apart on the couch, while Bruce had chosen the chair directly opposite and watched them over the rim of his cup. Kent’s knees were practically to his chest, and he wobbled as he settled his saucer against his chest. The entire gathering took on an awkward meet-the-parents feel.

The question was: who was Clark Kent? He was agreeable, obliging, uncompromising, honest and--admittedly--handsome, in a down-to-earth, middle-America kind of way. He had secured his job at the Daily Planet under the tutelage of Lois Lane, and had covered half-a-dozen international stories since he made his front-page debut with a scathing expose on the Metropolis Reconstruction Fund, half of which had been funneled into LexCorp shell companies and then miraculously recovered (Bruce stayed tight-lipped about his role in that recovery). His history prior to Metropolis was obscure. Kent mentioned waiting tables, and made a joke about pulleys that only a sailor (or a bat vigilante) would find particularly amusing. A half hour of awkwardly talking around the issue--making the most banal observations about the Gotham Knights’ losing streak that could reasonably be expected from a man who had run a Fortune 500 company in his younger days--and Bruce couldn’t put a finger on what made _this_ Daily Planet reporter more well known to the Wayne household than any of Gotham’s society hacks. 

He wasn’t without his points of interest. For instance: Clark held his saucer and cup like he was afraid they would break at any moment, but conversed with breezy sincerity. That combination of deep anxiety and philosophic unconcern--in Bruce’s experience _those_ traits signaled a man who had hidden something so long, he’d forgotten it was a secret. For a man like Clark Kent, that secret was likely something just as elemental and prosaic as the rolling wheat fields of Kansas. 

Bruce Wayne’s public persona skated by on the indulgence of society that thought him a little dim, a little uncaring, when both intelligence and compassion were in fashion with the ultra-rich. As such, Bruce Wayne was not normally confrontational when he was playing to the crowd, but now that the reporter was _inside of his home_ , he felt cornered. The more ill at ease he felt, the more inane his conversation became. 

When Bruce had resorted to philosophizing on monk-strap shoes to bore Kent out of what was left of the Wayne estate, Alfred thumped his cup down on its saucer.

“No coffee, Alfred?” Bruce asked, sipping his tea lightly.

“Make it yourself-- _after_ we’ve concluded our business.” Alfred squared his shoulders, and tugged at his waistcoat with the grim resolution of a man about to face the firing squad.

Bruce felt his world drop away with Alfred’s next sentence. 

“What’s Mr. Wayne’s current cover?”

If Bruce Wayne had been on a nasty bender, it would be natural for Alfred to arrange a cover. That wasn’t what brought Bruce up cold. It was the familiarity with which both of the men fell into a conspiratorial huddle, instinctively turned away from the bedroom, away from what would have been his empty chair. Bruce’s attention skated out to the trees, covered in snow. 

The realization, when it hit, bowled Bruce over. He, Kal and Diana had fought Doomsday in autumn. It was winter now. Bruce hadn’t been out for a night, or even a week. _Months_. It had been _months_.

The cup didn’t even rattle as Bruce set it down on the floor, and sat back in his chair to watch the conspirators across the gulf of everything he didn’t know. 

Kent pulled out a notebook, and flipped over pages of pigeon-scrawl. He stopped on a page that appeared to be nothing but dates, numbers, names, places. “I had a sighting in Monaco three days ago that a few Gotham papers snapped up.”

“Credible?”

Bruce swallowed at that question. There was a story buried in that word. 

“A mediocre photoshop from a previous trip,” Kent admitted. “But received well enough that I think that’s where we can plan Mr. Wayne’s re-entry.”

Alfred pulled out his tablet, his clearly non-civilian one, and tapped a few screens. Bruce breathed in sharply. Kent either didn’t notice anything amiss, or a butler with military-grade tech had become an unremarkable occurrence. 

(He did shoot Bruce a small, pensive look, but Bruce was doing his best to ignore it.) 

“A Wayne Enterprises plane out of Marseille will land tomorrow evening. It’s not ideal but--” Alfred lapsed into thought. Kent didn’t press for more details, and Bruce wouldn’t until he had Alfred alone. Alfred cleared his throat, and continued. “Naturally, Mr. Wayne should be seen as soon as possible to allay persistent rumors about his illness.”

Kent bobbed his head in agreement, and it was settled. Alfred tapped his screen a few more times. 

“Was the picture at the Hermitage Hotel?” Bruce asked, as steadily as his voice would allow. Alfred glanced up with a tight grimace. Bruce shrugged back. What other material was there of Bruce on the Riviera?

“A balcony shot outside of the Diamond Suite villa. Seated. You’re, um, shirtless. I photoshopped out the bandages. It’s still very tasteful,” Kent reassured.

Alfred paled. So Kent didn’t know _that_ , at least.

Bruce had stayed at the Hermitage hotel only once before--another one of those incidents that Bruce kept tightly locked down in a twenty year career of dealing with his physical limitations and moving on with clockwork efficiency. He shifted in his seat as he imagined a twinge in his lower lumbar, where Bane had splintered his vertebrae. 

“I’ll back-date the suite’s charges to Mr. Wayne’s personal account,” Alfred said a little wanly. “Was Mr. Wayne spotted at any of the local nightlife...?”

The tips of Clark’s ears pinked. “The rumor is that he retreated to Monte Carlo with a, a--”

“Paramour?” Alfred supplied. Clark’s shoulders slumped, and he nodded once, sharply.

Bruce resigned himself to Clark’s answer. His public tastes swung to the socially vapid, extremely dull heiresses that he so richly deserved: Aliya Van Patten, or maybe Tamora Pierson of the West Coast Shipping Piersons. Bruce Wayne would have to been seen with whomever the reporter had picked--at least twice in full daytime shots in the local papers before he could close down that cover and move on to the next Wayne escapade.

“She got a name?” Bruce asked flatly. 

(Clark and Alfred both startled, as though they’d forgotten he was there.)

“I used a couple of shell accounts to speculate,” Clark said. “Short, gorgeous, blonde. Tall, brunet, um,” Clark clenched his hands around the teacup, and Bruce thought he heard the faint sound of porcelain cracking. “ _Male_ ,” he added, finally, eyes darting anywhere but Bruce’s face.

“How delightful, Mr. Kent,” Alfred said with a lighter sarcasm than Bruce would have expected. “I believe you just nominated yourself to be Bruce’s date tomorrow night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Ehworehth khuhp w khuhtov Zyvehsh_ means "I have spoken to my leader" in Kryptonian. The untranslated word _Zyvehsh_ means "leader" (with a more democratic inflection) and not "owner"/"master" like Bruce projects. Back to the story. 
> 
> Gentle readers (and OP!), I have discovered how I can (maybe) get hatesex to happen in 12ish parts. Yay! Plot has to happen first. And although it may take me 12ish parts to make hatesex happen, hopefully you'll enjoy the fun that happens along the way. <3
> 
> I'm going to be rotating through updating my other WIPs, so I hope the wait isn't too terrible between chapters!


	3. Natural Hazards, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all boiled down to trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow my hatesex fill ended up as a 20th century novel of manners. I hope you enjoy tea parties! Warnings: guilt, people talking a lot, identity faffery, suspicion, more of the same. 
> 
> All of my love and apologies to Edith Wharton and my beta [susiecarter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter), one of whom was a great inspiration, the other of whom made this chapter less of a dumpster fire. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own doing.

* (B) *

The teacup in Clark Kent's hand trembled. It was set down on its saucer and pushed away from its owner. Clark paced away from the living room to stand in front of the lake view. 

Night had come. Clark cut a striking figure--the grating tones of his plaid melted into a wash of dark color and he appeared to glow where the light touched him, limning his shoulders with a faint blue shine. The moonlight paid him the compliment of not seeming so out-of-place in the empty shell of Bruce Wayne’s life. The epitome of damning with faint praise.

Clark’s back rose and fell like he was breathing deeply. Whatever else he might be thinking, he didn't share it with the room. 

Sprawled in his chair, his dressing gown thrown open, playing for an audience that wasn’t even watching him--Bruce felt tired. The strange lightness from when he’d woken had bled away, and the enormity of everything he had to do--everything he hadn’t done while he’d been injured--flattened him. Gotham, undefended, for months. Superman, unchecked in the world. His heart seethed. He didn’t even know what he grieved most: the time that had borne him away from his purpose; the obsession with Superman that had swallowed him whole; the choice he had made to fight alongside Kal; the choice he had made when he’d broken on the warehouse roof; the skin he had tasted once (and only ever once, he would bend his will with his bare hands to make sure of that); the wounded he didn’t save; the wounds he didn’t inflict.

* (A) *

The chief sin of the Wayne lineage, according to Alfred, was _dwelling_. Both Bruce and his father had the same bull-headed tendency to build their homes inside of failure, and let neither good fortune nor opportunity dislodge them from the moral privation of their soul. He had been stunned to see Bruce at the door, mugging for Clark, as though no time had passed. 

As he watched Bruce fold in on himself like an origami crane of guilt--now, Alfred started to _believe_. 

It really was Bruce sitting in that chair. 

Bruce Wayne, scion of the House of Wayne. 

All it would take was one night of lying through their teeth, and suddenly, the three months Bruce had vanished from the public eye would be explicable. Speculation that Bruce Wayne's death had been hushed up by the Wayne Foundation would dry up on the vine. (The photos of the cenotaph in the Wayne family mausoleum would be harder to explain away, but they could be discredited as forgeries.) And Alfred could get back to the business of securing the Wayne family legacy, by cajoling, flattery or bribery--the unseen half of the team had that watched over Gotham for twenty years. 

A tendril of warmth curled through his heart. He felt giddy. On a man of his years, it was unseemly. If he was slightly more sarcastic than usual to compensate for his bubbling sense of excitement, he could be forgiven. 

“I thought the idea was rather clever,” Alfred said to no one in particular, craning his neck to watch Clark, who had been seized by a silent fit of laughter. 

“Not one of your better jokes, Alfred,” Clark muttered.

Bruce was too far gone to notice the exchange. 

* (A) *

A hostile but not unkind silence met his words as Alfred sketched out the plan to revive Bruce Wayne in Gotham society. Like a good conjuring trick, it relied on a dash of misdirection at customs, a sleight-of-hand trade-off between cars, and several hours in the social spotlight to convince high society that Bruce had been touring the Mediterranean coast with his paramour. 

Clark wasn’t as pragmatic about the net his speculation had caught him in. He paced beside the glass walls like a caged tiger until he ran out of view, and then swung around the dividing wood wall that hid the elevator entrance to the cave. Bruce leaned forward as Clark drifted closer to the inert Kryptonian drone--what it was doing out in the living room was anyone’s guess. But Clark made a convincing show of not finding anything out of the ordinary with the décor; he picked up the cheerful pink and white medical device, regarded it abstractly, then replaced it on the end table with an aww-shucks hand to the back of his neck. 

Alfred’s voice caught. Clark hadn’t pulled the shy reporter routine since the first day he’d arrived at the lakehouse in his civilian persona, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, press badge partially tucked behind his tie, and a _I think I may be able to help with the publicity problem, Mr. Pennyworth._ He’d nearly thrown the man off the grounds, until Clark had tipped his glasses down and said, _It’s me, Alfred_ in the voice of Superman. Unearthly blue eyes had shone out at him, and he’d _known_. How Bruce could miss the connection between the two men--he had seen Superman up-close for maybe thirty minutes before the hero had commed Alfred, frantic and pleading, Bruce’s life fading away in his arms--Alfred could only speculate. 

Alfred openly stared at his ward. Bruce frowned. 

Fondness squeezed his heart… and suspicion crept in. 

Why _didn’t_ Bruce recognize Superman?

Alfred trusted Clark, enough to let him convert the lakehouse power grid to accommodate all of the Kryptonian tech--even knowing the wrath it would bring once Bruce was awake. But that trust was not absolute. They had had their differences of opinion. Clark had made more than his fair share of bad calls since Doomsday (but it was not Alfred’s place to offer the young man unsolicited advice--he would have had to ask Alfred, and he never had done). Alfred had worried about how fragile human bodies were, but Clark was adamant that Bruce would recover fully. Was Clark wrong? 

With the studied practice of the conjuror, Alfred jostled his teacup to draw attention away from the palm he laid flat against his knee. He curled his fingers into a specific pattern, and returned them to the teacup. It was a coded signal Bruce had drilled into Alfred years ago. Its purpose was to slip Bruce Wayne an urgent message when he was in public.

Clark offered to take Alfred’s cup, as Bruce looked visibly taken aback. 

Alfred waited a few seconds, and repeated the sign.

Bruce furrowed his brow. 

Alfred continued to offer timetables for the flight and car service to Metropolis, ticking off the selections that absolutely wouldn’t work with Clark’s schedule. Finally, Bruce coughed into his fist, and then gave the countersign that looked like he was brushing lint off his shoulder. 

Relief flooded in, even though Alfred wasn’t sure what he had proved. That Bruce remembered a private code he’d created ten years ago? That Bruce understood the reason Alfred had deployed it? That Clark Kent may know some of their secrets, but not all of them? 

He chose, against all of the nightmares of the past three months, to put his faith in the idea that the Bruce that had come back to life was his Bruce after all. 

“The best news I’ve had all day,” Alfred said. 

* (A) *

Everything changed once Alfred initiated the code. The blank abstraction disappeared from his ward’s face. Bruce drummed out his questions rapid-fire, while he mugged vacuously for their guest. Alfred confirmed that Bruce had been out for three months. Superman had brought him back to the lakehouse after the fight, badly injured. His body had been on the verge of cellular deterioration, an effect of the creature’s energy fields. Superman had explained haltingly to Alfred that Bruce wasn’t trying to kill him anymore, and maybe he could help. 

(Alfred hoped to God that Bruce never asked how he knew Bruce had failed to kill Superman--Alfred would claim to his dying day that he’d gone for a drink and a brisk jog during the resolution of the fight.) 

The Batwing had been spotted in the city, but the rumor that the Bat had perished in the skirmish with Doomsday grew every day he hadn’t responded to his signal. Bruce didn’t ask about how the _perished_ rumor started. 

Good. 

Alfred wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet.

When Bruce signed _Where is Superman?_ , Alfred realized he wasn’t ready to have that conversation either. 

Aloud, Bruce asked where the car would pick up Clark. Alfred took the opportunity to reply to both questions at once, and said: “That’s something of a complex question, Master Wayne.” 

He couldn’t lie to Bruce. Not completely. Alfred segued the conversation into how Clark fit into the sprawl of Alfred’s plan, and hoped Bruce would forgive the deception when it was inevitably discovered.

* (B) *

Bruce Wayne barely had a preference for anything, let alone romantic partners. They tended to reflect his taste in cars: eye-catching, powerful, high maintenance. Discreet partners were thin on the ground, if Alfred thought that Clark was their best hope. He remembered Clark at the charity event. His country brown tweed had receded into the crowd, a social camouflage that had let Bruce ignore him right up until Clark had shoved his hand into his face. Bruce Wayne needed the opposite effect: a presence that would pull cameras to him, and then scatter them just as quickly. Someone who would put him in the limelight, but not under scrutiny.

When Alfred had finished, Clark loosened his tie, clasped his hands, and let his face fall into them--the picture of a broken man. 

Clark’s complete lack of enthusiasm prickled what little ego Bruce had left. Ten years ago, he wouldn’t have had to fight this hard for an escort. After Bane, Silver St. Cloud had hung on his arm and lied through her teeth about his yearlong absence. She had kissed his cheek after their month-long fling and whispered, _Gotham missed you_ \--the closest intimation she ever made about what Bruce did with his nights. And that had been that. They’d remained friendly, until she disappeared to Europe two years ago.

( _Known to this household_ , Alfred said. He trusted Clark, that much was clear.) 

“It’s just the one evening,” Clark started, without looking up. 

Bruce tried not to indulge his vanity by combing his fingers through the gray hair at his temples. Bruce Wayne wouldn’t be rankled by Clark’s behavior. 

“Ahhhh.” Alfred’s way of drawing out a syllable was an apology and a personal reproach for not thinking a problem through to its logical conclusion. Bruce was childishly glad that for once, it wasn’t aimed at him. 

Alfred drummed his fingers, and flicked out his index finger in an elaborate hook. This particular code hadn’t gotten much use since the early days of training Robin, so it took a few seconds for Bruce to remember its meaning. 

_Do you want to explain?_ , Alfred had asked. Bruce quirked his eyebrow in response, unobserved by the object of their silent communication. An open palm on his knee, that brushed downwards. _And ruin your fun?_ , Bruce signed back, with more than a little glee. 

Alfred punctuated the conversation as he normally did with a very dry _hmph_ , then cleared his throat. “I'm afraid the time commitment will be more substantial than an evening, Mr. Kent.” 

Clark protested that, surely, Mr. Wayne must be too busy for social commitments. All three of them felt the hollowness of that argument. Mr. Wayne didn’t _have_ a schedule. Not a real one, anyway. Bruce had no idea what Alfred might cram into it now that he was awake, but now that he was in on the joke, the charade of a very busy man who had nothing in the world to do turned Bruce’s smile smug. The reporter caught Bruce’s amusement and switched tactics abruptly. 

“I have that _thing_ , the Syndicate follow-up story. I’ll be unavailable for--” Clark’s hand fiddled with his glasses that were slipping down the bridge of his nose, a darting, nervous gesture that seemed to be caught between the desire to yank them off or to smash them back against his brow. 

_Honest men_. Bruce snorted. Clark Kent was one of the worst liars he’d ever seen. 

“Am I missing something?” Clark asked in an even voice, antagonized by the amount of silent fun being had at his expense. 

“Bruce Wayne on a date in Metropolis with a Metropolis reporter at his favorite charity,” Alfred said carefully. “It's practically a declaration of _intention_.”

Clark paled. 

(If Bruce were a betting man, he’d put it all on: ill at the prospect that Clark could be mistaken for the sort of man Bruce Wayne would fall head-over-heels for.)

"Two events maximum, and I retain veto power over anything you choose to wear," Alfred bargained. 

Clark’s chin rose in challenge. In a halting cadence--“Do you believe that after all of this--”--he curtly gestured between himself and Bruce--“--I’d show up in the wrong suit?” 

"To the contrary,” Alfred said with extra gentleness. “We both know the value of appearance, don’t we, Mister Kent? We need the illusion of you being in a billionaire's pocket. We need credibility." 

Bruce didn’t know what to expect. Though Kent didn’t have the wisdom granted by the long habit of living with Alfred, he had to have watched enough romantic comedies to understand the idea of the socialite makeover--the indignity done to body and soul in the pursuit of the red carpet look. Demands of time, money, exposure, influence--anything would have made sense in response to Alfred’s intention (stated explicitly or not) of parading Kent before an emergency tailor before the sun rose tomorrow morning. His inseams measured, his shoulders draped, pinned and chalked for a suit that a man as rumpled as Mr. Kent would find distasteful. 

But there were no demands: only another nod. 

Curious. Worse than curious. Suspicious. Clark Kent was easily the most suspicious honest man Bruce had ever met.

It galled Bruce how much he wanted to trust him anyway.

* (B) *

Bruce watched Clark with an appalled fascination. Clark Kent had folded easier than a man with a busted flush at a no limits poker table. He said _yes_. 

"Master Wayne?" Alfred asked. 

Bruce Wayne was faced with a dilemma. It all boiled down to trust. How much did Kent know about Bruce’s nightly activities, and did he trust Clark Kent enough to play his part in Alfred’s plan? 

Say Kent knew, and Bruce accepted Alfred’s plan. What ammunition would Bruce have against him if he decided to go public with their little charade? The trail of Bruce’s falsified visa entries might lead right back to the Bat. On the other hand, if Kent knew nothing, Bruce could pretend to be uncomplicated Bruce Wayne to his heart’s content, implicate the reporter so deeply in their scheme that blackmail would be the furthest thing from his mind (unless he wanted to tear his career down alongside it), and go their separate ways once Bruce’s cover had been adequately established.

Bruce was too cynical not to understand the heart of the problem. The Bat might be violent, cruel, and single-minded in the pursuit of justice, but it was also curious. Occupational hazard, he guessed. 

"Master Wayne?" Alfred repeated, pointedly.

“I think the man can pick his own clothing,” Bruce said, with the air of having given it thought. “Give or take the shoes.” 

“If experience has taught me anything, Master Wayne, it's that both of you make terrible decisions as a matter of course,” Alfred said hotly. “I will be selecting your wardrobe as well, sir.”

“Wouldn't want to be accused of favoritism,” Bruce murmured.

* (B) *

The mental dossier that Bruce had been building on Clark Kent contained a half-hour of stories about a Kansas childhood (only child), a rough tally of his living family (mother), a profession and place of employment (reporter, Daily Planet), a surmise on his comfort with deception (comfortable, if done through print), a memory from a party (aggressive handshake). Bruce had noted how Clark hedged around the gulf between childhood and the man he became. The little details that composed a life were absent. He half-expected Clark’s job was an accident, and he spent his entire life in the state of unending crisis or flight. And then there was that false note he had detected--an emotional volatility that was at odds with the rest of his personality.

Case in point: the moment Bruce Wayne agreed to Alfred’s proposition, Clark’s go-along-to-get-along attitude cracked. 

“No,” Clark said, hunched over his core like the word had been punched out of him. He threw his shoulders back, body tense, and said it again. 

Suddenly, all three of them were on their feet. Clark slung his bag across his shoulder; Alfred brought his arms up to stop him. Bruce felt the tension in the room shift, and instinctively shifted into battle-readiness. He cinched the gown’s belt tighter, and shoved the ties aside so they wouldn’t catch on his legs in case he suddenly needed to move. Bruce didn’t think about the reaction; he had enough experience to know his instincts rarely steered him wrong. 

“No, Alfred,” Clark repeated softly, as he stuffed his notepad into his bag, his eyes firmly locked on the floor. “I changed my mind.”

“Mister Kent, the plan has moving parts, but we can manage exposure! If you enter through the mezzanine, the paparazzi should be clustered at the front entrance--” 

“It’s not the press, Alfred. It’s _him_. Bruce Wayne isn’t--”

The conversation was coming apart. Clark Kent was ready to bolt. Somehow, he doubted Alfred could corral their spooked horse. With this shiver of foresight, Bruce silently moved between them. 

Clark’s head snapped up and he flinched like he’d been slapped. His pupils had shrunk to pinpricks, darting from Alfred to Bruce.

(He was uncomfortable with their closeness, Bruce realized.) 

He pressed further into Clark’s personal space, and stared him down with all of the coolness of a man surveying a battlefield. 

Clark drew himself up to his full height--but he still had to tip his gaze up to meet Bruce eye-to-eye. 

“Bruce Wayne isn’t what?” Bruce repeated casually, all trace of the playboy gone from his tone. 

Violence crackled under his skin, but Alfred wasn’t leaving and he wasn’t stopping Bruce either. Whatever scene was going to play out, his guardian was going to witness it. That didn’t bank Bruce’s cold fury as much as he thought it might. 

Whatever precipice they were fast approaching, it was Clark who saw the yawning gap and backed away from it. A convulsive swallow, and Bruce watched Clark force himself to relax. “Bruce Wayne isn’t _ready for this_ ,” Clark said flatly, but his face betrayed his genuine concern. “You’ve been… unwell.” 

(That threw Bruce for a loop. He would hardly call three missing months _unwell_. Did Clark not know the extent of his injuries?)

“And you’ve been lying for me,” he returned, sticking to statements of fact. 

“I have,” Clark said, more incredulously than Bruce felt the situation required.

“And that doesn’t sit right with you,” Bruce said--again: a fact, not a guess. Some deep emotion churned below the reporter’s calm exterior, and Bruce was only now glimpsing the depth of it. Guilt was one possibility. Shame another. He had seemed cool, calm, controlled when he was discussing his planted stories with Alfred. Not a man overly concerned with his journalistic ethics, if he felt the end justified the means. And yet... 

Clark struggled to suppress an aggressive reaction. The muscle in his jaw still jumped. “It doesn’t.”

“Maybe you want to take it out on me, but you don’t know how.” 

“Maybe you’re wrong,” Clark shot back. 

“What do you want, Kent,” Bruce demanded. “You have enough to blackmail the Foundation, or me personally, if you decide to take Alfred’s little stunt public. I _know_ you want something from me, but I can’t figure out what the hell it is.”

“Shake my hand,” Clark said urgently. He stuck his hand into the sliver of space between their bodies, his knuckles brushing against Bruce’s solar plexus. 

It was the lightest touch. Bruce had experienced more hands-on introductions at Wayne Enterprises shareholder meetings. The Kryptonian cloth processed the touch outside of what his senses could understand. A wash of color sparked across his vision. 

Bruce grasped the hand without thinking.

“Clark Kent, Daily Planet.” Clark swallowed. More roughly, he said: “It _is_ a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wayne.”

The normal length of a handshake passed without any movement of their arms. Wedged between their bodies at an awkward angle, it probably didn’t count as a handshake so much as a grounding point of contact between them. A thumb ghosted across the back of his knuckles, too quick to be anything more than his imagination, and a quiet warmth that prickled where their skin met. Clark looked unearthly. Luminescent. Bruce didn’t break the contact. 

Clark swayed, a little unsteady on his feet, and Bruce brought up his other hand to cup his elbow. Like a circuit completed, his vision swam with color. An oceanic blue. Clark glowed in the strange blue field, points of light blazing across his skin. Bruce’s vision rippled, and he saw the blood pumping through his arteries, the cells in his heart, the space between molecules. He blinked again, and it was just Clark standing in front of him with a faint blue halo around his body. The points of light had disappeared. 

“I have a second request,” Clark said a little breathlessly. 

“By all means, let’s hear it.” Alfred’s sarcasm cut through the blue haze. “We are all reasonable men--aren’t we, Master Wayne?”

Bruce read the message loud and clear: back the fuck off the reporter. He let Clark’s hand drop, and took a large step back. His vision snapped back to normal. 

“It doesn’t have to be tonight,” Clark hedged, body language turning shy again. 

“Spit it out, son--”--congratulating himself that none of his own breathless confusion made it into his tone.

“An hour of your time where you’re not acting like a complete ass. And a shirt, and pants,” he said wildly, as though he were importuning Bruce with an extravagant demand. “Clothing is mandatory.” 

Bruce blinked. 

“Deal,” he said slowly. He’d never fought so hard and given so little for it. “That’s two daytime meets plus the fundraiser, Kent, and for your trouble, you’ll have the pleasure of throwing me over in front of witnesses. Big public spectacle. Imagine how many puff piece editorials the Daily Planet will squeeze from that.”

“Three unrelated, separate meetings,” Clark said uneasily. 

“Four if you count the clothing-mandatory hour,” Alfred added helpfully. 

When Clark agreed, a small thrill shot through Bruce’s heart. He stomped down on that feeling, hard. 

* (B) *

Bruce clapped Alfred on the back of his shoulder as plans were finalized, and goodbyes exchanged. The strange blue vision didn’t return. He avoided touching Clark again. 

* (B) *

In a return to form, Bruce made a terrible show of gallantry in seeing his ‘guest’ to the door when business had concluded. The smile on his face reached his eyes. Victory, however petty, made him magnanimous. 

“Mr. Wayne, if you remembered me at all, I’d say you enjoy seeing me in distress,” Clark said darkly. 

Bruce Wayne would say something charming and brusque, but what he wanted Bruce Wayne couldn’t get him. What Bruce wanted was absolute confirmation that the trust they were investing in Clark was worth the risk--and he suspected that whatever Clark found so objectionable about Bruce Wayne, it was in that easy exchange of banter. 

But he never could resist escalation. He mustered a sanguine mood for the last salvo on the tattered scraps of Clark’s dignity. 

“Pretty boy, bad habit. Don’t quote me.” Bruce didn’t dimple, but only just. 

Clark’s eyes widened. The callback to Lex’s charity party had landed. “ _You_ \--” and Clark took an aborted step forward, one hand clenching.

“Son, if you’re going to be my escort, you’re going to need a better poker face.” Bruce picked up his teacup, mock saluted Clark, and drained the cold tea in one pull. “Gentlemen.” 

He beat a hasty retreat to his room. 

* (B) *

“Now that’s settled--” he heard Alfred mutter. A second later, and even quieter--something he wouldn’t have caught if he hadn’t immediately ducked behind the divider to catch the last strains of conversation--“If I could have a moment of your time outside, Mr. Kent?” 

Bruce discarded the dressing gown the moment the hidden doorway to the cave slid open. 

Alfred hadn’t been idle during his absence. The steel door in front of the elevator with the optical scanner was new. So were the security protocols on the cave’s computer system. There was a definite theme to the modifications in the house: he had submitted to everything short of a full body scan to reach the computer log-in. Even the Kryptonian dampening field reflected a certain desire for privacy and security. It was an interesting escalation from the minimal security Bruce had installed prior to moving into the lakehouse. Bruce Wayne’s entire life was the security deterrent to the Bat. If a freak in a mask came knocking down their doors--all of the vascular matching in the world wouldn’t save them; the Bat would have already lost the element of surprise. 

The final bio-scanner on the computer terminal returned an error when it attempted to read through the Kryptonian cloth. Bruce peeled the cuff back gently, and touched his wrist to the WayneTech vascular transducer. A wash of ice prickled down his exposed skin that built into a lancing agony. 

The scanner chirped, and Bruce yanked the cuff down. The pain faded like it had in his bedroom, but a phantom ache remained. He rubbed small soothing circles into his wrist as the terminal booted up. A small outline of a mountain sat at the bottom of the computer’s icon tray with a disconnected slash through it. KLA OFFLINE, it read.

That was new, too.

He clicked the icon. A video protocol brought up the last image snapped by a webcam. A sterile white lab, with rows of medical equipment in the foreground. One of any number of high-tech labs that he and Alfred had hacked… except. Oh. 

Hexagonal objects lined the sloping back wall. 

He had one just like it in his living room right now. 

Bruce’s heart raced, even though the video snap was hours old. He shut down the protocol quickly.

His mind lit up with questions. Where was Kal? Why hadn’t he contacted Bruce yet? It had been far longer than the hour that the Kryptonian drone had said Kal would _await him_. What the hell was up with the suit, the strange sparks, the Kryptonian drone, any of it? 

God, but he needed--

(That moment when Kal’s cape had been thrown up around his head like a fiery crown, as he cradled Bruce’s neck. The broken skylight rained down on them harmlessly in the shelter of the cloth. He’d breathed Kal’s air, felt the hot line of his own arousal pressing against the armor. He had built that armor to kill a god. He needed it gone. He needed to feel if Kal was burning with the same fever he was. He needed to slide against that body, to feel it give underneath his fingers.

Before he’d known how Kal’s skin tasted, but after he had hurdled them over the hazy boundaries of their lust…was that when he’d thought that Kal looked nothing like a god?)

\--nothing. Bruce needed nothing. If Kal was too busy to discover that Bruce had woken up, he’d have Alfred give him a professional courtesy call tomorrow. 

He could figure this out. The suit. The injury. The missing three months. He only needed time and space to force the world to make sense again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter became monstrously long, so I split it in two. The second part should be posted after I've finished revising it--probably by mid-week. Sadly, after that, I'll be on a small hiatus from my WIPs, as I write up a storm for the [DCEU Exchange](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/dceu_exchange1/profile).


	4. Natural Hazards, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce knew his reflexes were shot... the rest of Bruce's night didn't look like it would be an improvement, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eternal thanks and appreciation to [susiecarter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter) who keeps this fill from spinning into the sun. All remaining mistakes are mine.

* (B) *

A younger, more impetuous man would have suited up and swung onto a Gotham rooftop by nightfall.

Call it hard-won wisdom--Bruce knew his body. His reflexes were shot. The extra seconds it took to make his body respond to his commands could be the difference between dodging a knife or taking it through the ribs. Microgaps in his attention were becoming more noticeable. His body felt fine physically--(better than fine; he had been laying in a hospital bed for three months. Why was his muscle tone still strong enough to wear the armor?)--training and rehabilitation were the only course that didn’t lead to him bleeding out in an alley. 

Three months ago, an evening out as Bruce Wayne would have felt like a distraction. Tonight, it felt like a life preserver. Alfred’s plan to return Bruce Wayne to Gotham was straightforward. Simple. 

The Bat was philosophic: plan for the worst, plan for the best, don’t let the natural hazards of pleasure, amusement, or desire distract from the mission. With Clark Kent on his arm--Middle American charm notwithstanding--he was sure that the only things he had to worry about would be well inside his bubble of personal influence.

Bruce settled in for a quiet evening in the cave, and pulled up the live security feeds. 

* (A) *

The first time Alfred had seen Clark, it had been a little like this: red-black veins crawling up the side of his face in a combination of anger and righteous fury. Clark had cradled Bruce’s body to his chest, and Alfred hadn’t reflected on the incongruity of a man hovering on the lakehouse veranda--he’d let out a small _Oh god, Bruce_ , and jumped immediately to triage. Now, as Clark’s veins crackled with raw energy, Alfred saw the angry god of Bruce’s dark imagination. But he blinked, and like the static clearing from a channel, he saw just _Clark_. The crawling black veins bruised his cheeks, and he looked like a man on the edge of complete exhaustion. 

Alfred grasped Clark’s shoulder roughly, and tried to angle his face away from the black semi-sphere on the veranda ceiling. He had disabled the house cameras a month ago--but he knew that it would only take Bruce a few minutes to bypass that precaution. For a moment, Alfred pressed against the gravity of a planet. Clark relented, and allowed himself to be moved. 

“I know Master Wayne can be trying, but you need to control yourself if you’re going to accompany him tomorrow night,” Alfred hissed, quickly shutting the double doors behind Clark. 

* (B) *

The Bat didn’t have many rules, but his respect for Alfred’s autonomy was one of them. He had never intentionally eavesdropped on his guardian. It wasn’t a rule that--to the best of Bruce’s knowledge--Alfred was aware of, as the Bat surveilled Gotham with a blithe disregard for the private lives of its citizens, and the grounds were monitored on a continuous security feed. But Bruce had always given Alfred the task of reviewing the footage when there was a chance that Alfred might appear on the feed. Whether Alfred was aware of it or not, Bruce had set that boundary, that small gesture to the man who raised him--not everything had to be sacrificed for the Mission.

This was a special exception, he told himself. Bruce had a rational interest in whatever Alfred was discussing with Clark now. If Clark Kent was was going to be linked to Bruce Wayne in the public eye--he needed every scrap of information he could gather, even if he had to (minorly) violate Alfred’s privacy to do it. 

Bruce switched the security feed to the veranda camera. 

His conscience twinged at the intrusion; the guilt would not be placated with rationalizations, even when the feed channel only returned a hazy black static. 

* (A) *

“What--?” Clark yanked off his glasses and studied his face in the window. “That’s...hmmm,” he said at last. His fingers pushed at the skin, turning translucent under a dim red glow. “My heat vision must be coming back,” he added after a moment, more unconcerned than Alfred thought the situation warranted.

“Coming _back?_ ” 

Clark squeezed his eyes shut, and with visible effort, pushed his vision back into a normal human range. The light behind his pupils dispersed. “You didn’t ask,” Clark said carefully, as he resettled his glasses against his nose. “And I didn’t think you’d say yes, if you knew.” 

Alfred had always excelled at pulling at the threads of Bruce’s half-truths. He read the lines of Clark’s posture, the quiet exhaustion that folded him in on himself in defeat, and made a leap. “Bruce is still dying.” 

It was one logical conclusion. Clark had been pushing himself night after night in the lab, checking blood samples, protein reactions, slicing away bits of skin to subject them to the energy-plus-kryptonite combination that had proved lethal to Bruce. 

Apparently it was the last conclusion on Clark’s mind. Alfred almost heard a _yes_ in place of Clark’s definitive “no,” but Clark didn’t look any less cowed. “I’m not a scientist like my--.” Clark shook his head savagely, and didn’t finish that thought. “I have no idea why he’s awake, but he’s fine, Alfred. As long as he stays in the suit.”

Alfred crossed his arms. “I should have done this a month ago, but I’m asking now. Explain yourself, young man.” He glanced over at the camera hidden in a small black semi-sphere on the ceiling. “And quickly, if you can.” 

* (B) *

He had barreled headlong past his discomfort with boundaries, and now Bruce found himself with a more urgent problem.

Bruce cycled through the Wayne manor feeds and the perimeter cameras. Still running. He didn’t catch a view of an unfamiliar car--Clark must have been dropped by a car service. He flipped back to another house feed, his bedroom. Nothing. He cycled through all twelve of the lakehouse video feeds, including the cave. 

Someone had disabled all of the house cameras. 

His thoughts darkened. Unless more had changed than he’d realized, the list of people who had access to the security net was very short. Three names, in fact. And two of them hadn’t had regular access to the lakehouse in years.

Bruce manually fed restart instructions to the cameras, and sat back as he waited for them to come back online. 

* (A) *

As Clark explained the suit, Alfred’s stomach sank. Once Clark had gotten sufficiently up to speed on a topic, his explanations were thorough and exacting--but something was missing. Though Alfred couldn’t claim to have more than a rudimentary understanding of Kryptonian technology, he was a mechanic. Certain principles remained constant. Whether it be for a propulsion unit or an advanced biological containment suit, an active energy field requires a massive, steady drain on a power source. And power that was compatible with Kryptonian systems, but lightweight enough to have no apparent storage system on the suit itself...

“Clark.” Alfred used the parental tone of voice that turned a young Bruce on his ear more than once. “Where does the suit draw its power from?” 

Clark glanced over his shoulder. Faster than Alfred could see it happen, the tie was off Clark’s neck, and he was unbuttoning the top two buttons of his dress shirt. The material was pulled aside, baring the hexagonal mesh weave of another suit. The surface was shockingly white, gleaming in the moonlight like an unearthly pearl. Alfred caught the inky darkness of a black S-shield only by its complete absence of light. 

Alfred’s disbelief must have been palpable, as Clark immediately backpedaled on whatever horror Alfred must have been imagining: “It’s safe. Maybe safer when the contact is skin-to-skin, but the procedure is still sound. I output energy, the black suit absorbs it. I just--might--lose one or two powers for a few minutes. Or a few hours.” Clark rushed on. “It’s nothing to be concerned about. I’m okay. Bruce is okay.” 

Clearly, he’d been waiting to confess this particular part of his plan. It had probably sounded more convincing in his mind, because Clark lost steam as Alfred waited out the end of Clark’s denials.

“Of course--and that’s why you neglected to mention this fact before today.”

Clark drooped in the face of Alfred’s disapproval. “Believe me, I tried everything. This was the only way it worked,” he mumbled into his chest as he re-buttoned his shirt.

* (B) *

The cameras finished their reboot cycle, and came online with a crisp view of the veranda. Alfred and Clark stood by the double doors, one of Alfred’s hands on the reporter’s arm, and the reporter tucking his tie back into his collar. Restraining him, or exhorting him--he couldn’t tell. The external cameras weren’t wired for sound. 

Bruce made a mental note to close that gap in their security net as soon as possible. 

* (A) *

Before Clark’s feet could leave the veranda, Alfred set a hand on Clark’s arm to tether him to the ground. 

“I meant what I said earlier. Bruce was ready to call down your wrath when he believed that the _possibility_ of you choosing wrongly should condemn you. He is not a philosophical man, Mr. Kent. Time alone will not improve his outlook.” 

“We weren’t--fighting at the end,” Clark protested weakly, his cheeks heating. 

Alfred suppressed the urge to just shake the man. “He devoted two years to discovering a way to kill you. Do you think his anger died with him? Do you honestly believe his opinion of you will improve once he sees what you’ve done in the world?” 

That one landed. As quickly as a flash of anger surfaced, it dispersed, and Clark found that commanding voice that challenged nations. “You’ve never disagreed with my decisions before.” 

Instantly, Alfred was aware of his mistake. In the three months of their association, he may have voiced disapproval over Clark’s handling of a botched kryptonite heist but he’d never criticized Clark’s choices. They weren’t friends; they weren’t partners; they were acquaintances of a one-time ally working towards a common goal. It hadn’t been his place to comment on situations that had no bearing on that goal. In Clark’s mind, all that had amounted to Alfred’s tacit approval of his actions. Not the attitude of a man who was trying to put out a raging brush fire with two hands and a bucket. 

It occurred to Alfred far too belatedly that he had been as close to an authority figure on the superhero business as Clark was likely to get. 

“To the contrary, Mr. Kent,” Alfred said coolly. “You’ve never asked if I agreed with them before.”

Clark set his jaw against a swell of anger and regret. “I did make one good choice.”

“Yes, well,” Alfred trailed off, as he remembered the intensity of Bruce’s final few weeks, the single-mindedness a man who was preparing to die. “I don’t know if he’ll agree with that either,” he said gently. 

* (B) * 

Rotating through the camera feeds, Bruce watched the figure of Clark Kent cut through the chest-high grass. He didn’t envy Kent’s hike back out to the highway along the scenic Wayne Manor route. In the dark, the memories swarmed around the Manor like a whirlwind of bats. 

When the grainy smudge of Clark’s form passed beyond the perimeter of the surveillance net, Bruce pushed away from the monitor bank, and powered up the small flip-screen on the backup terminal. He typed a few command line queries to pull up a list of files on the the video archive. 

Everything, starting the day of his fight with Superman, had been scrubbed from the server with military-grade data scrambling. A few more commands confirmed it. The server was empty--even the back-ups of the back-ups were gone. 

There was one other place where he might find what he was looking for. He opened a voice protocol to the Batwing. After a moment of contemplation, he gave Alfred’s code instead of his own and requested the video logs from the past three months. 

“Three videos are available,” the voice protocol intoned. “Shall I download them to your terminal, Penny-One?” 

“No.” Bruce inserted one of the spare encrypted drives into the terminal. “Please download directly to the external drive, and purge the record of the transfer.” 

Download completed, the transfer disappeared from the activity log. Bruce powered down the plane remotely, and sank back into his chair in thought. Who had access to the video server? Who could have deleted all record of anything that had happened in the house since Bruce arrived, who knew the protocol for removing all backups as well? 

Bruce’s conclusion was inevitable. 

Paranoia was never Alfred’s failing, but it couldn’t be denied: he was hiding something. 

* * * 

* (A) *

Alfred found several perfectly valid reasons not follow Bruce down into the cave. 

First it was cleaning. He swept the living room of its abandoned dishes, dumped out half a pot of cold tea, tidied the kitchenette. As he set the cups to soak, he noticed one had been chipped, cracks in the shape of fingerprints. Alfred laid the broken teacup on the counter. He could run it through the 3d scanner, commission a new set, if Bruce felt sentimental over the loss. 

Second it was scheduling. Appointments from nine in the morning until five in the evening were meticulously entered into Clark’s and Bruce’s itineraries. He commed Clark privately to notify him that he had suit fitting at 6am tomorrow, then cleared his own calendar. Alfred knew a difficult case when he heard one, and he would fly the Batwing to Antarctica to retrieve the wayward superhero and drag him back to Metropolis himself if came to that. 

By his third distraction, Alfred had to admit that he was procrastinating. 

Bruce would have discovered the camera tampering by now and the missing video archives. He definitely would have seen the news feeds. He gave it even chances whether Bruce had hacked his personal logs.

Well. 

Alfred had dealt with his ward throwing himself off of Gotham roofs for twenty years; surely he could face one awkward reunion. 

He pulled a coverall out of the utility hatch in the kitchenette, and he resigned himself to whatever he found below.

* (A) *

Alfred slipped into the coverall in the elevator. 

The cave was in chaos. The security door was thrown open, and papers had been scattered across the floor. A trail of half-repaired gadgets led down the stairs to the workshop. The bank of monitors played feeds from the local and international news, cranked up loud enough to echo back from the depths of the cave. 

_Reports of looting in the Diamond District continue to roll in as Governor Sante calls for calm…Curfew continues in Gotham tonight… The National Guard has been activated and will arrive--_

_The Metahuman Menace continues to plague Gotham--They tolerated the alien in Metropolis--and now look at what--_

_Sent shockwaves through the nation… The White House faces a 10-point drop in opinion polls after the Joint Chiefs… Should Superman be declared an enemy combatant?... Superman could not be reached for comment--_

The cacophony of voices followed him as he collected the stream of bat-devices, and carried down the staircase to the workshop. Alfred’s tread down the stairs was light, but Bruce had always been able to pick it up several rooms away. Alfred shouldn’t have been able to approach him unaware--but--

The wall of diagnostic monitors hummed with the statistics from the latest calibration, their red glow muted in the cave’s light. 

“Bruce?” he called out.

\--but Bruce, who was standing over the Batmobile, startled. 

The Batmobile didn’t even have a coating of dust; Alfred had restored the roof, fabricated new parts for the damaged chassis, swapped out the engine for one that favored speed over distance rather than raw power. Bruce pressed a hand to her as he would sometimes when he thought Alfred wasn’t looking: reverently, like a sinner praying for redemption. 

Bruce slid away from the Batmobile, and Alfred snorted when he saw him--all of him--without the dressing gown. The red light splattered across the crest of the House of El like blood. 

“Seeing your face over that shield has to be some kind of cosmic joke,” Alfred said, dumping the bat paraphernalia onto an empty workbench. 

“Has its benefits,” Bruce returned, as he circled to the opposite side of the room. 

“Even a lifetime of picking up after you doesn’t adequately explain your disdain for neatness,” Alfred said testily, as he touched a mangled tracking prototype that he had hoped to test in extreme cold weather conditions. “Nor does your foul mood excuse poor impulse control.” 

Bruce ignored him, his face thunderous. He was as mad as Alfred had ever seen him. “You purged the video archive,” he said, low and dangerous. 

Just like that, they were both on the balls of their feet, wary, ready for a fight. Any number of their training sessions began the same way, except Alfred usually had a handheld sparring pad between them. 

“I did,” Alfred agreed. 

They stared at each other across the chassis of the Batmobile.

“A lot’s happened while I’ve been out,” Bruce said conversationally.

“Indeed.” Alfred put a little more space between them. The coverall was bulky, slowed movement in the legs. Bruce would take advantage of that. If he actually meant to attack him. 

Alfred expected a barrage of questions, or a round of throws--whichever would allow them to work out their mutual suspicion to their satisfaction. Either would have been keeping in line with the man Alfred had known. But another strange shift in mood hit out of nowhere, and Bruce backed away from Alfred with his hands unconsciously raised in surrender.

“This is ridiculous,” Bruce muttered to himself as he scrubbed his hands through his hair, fighting with the worst part of himself. “This is ridiculous, this is _Alfred_.” Bruce looked half-crazed in the bloody light. “In the manor--” 

“Master Wayne,” Alfred returned cagily, still on the balls of his feet. Nothing was more dangerous than a man in apparent surrender. “You’re about to apologize, and I’m about to disbelieve you. What you mean to say is, ‘I intended to die, and I’m sorry that I didn’t do it in an expedient manner.’” 

Bruce laughed, a high bitter sound. Alfred knew that the sarcasm was firmly self-directed. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Reserve judgment until after tomorrow night,” Alfred countered.

“The party?” Incredulous. Intense. Bruce closed the distance between them, and Alfred backed up for a better position. If Bruce was going to to tackle him, he’d rather not fly into the tool locker. “Do you honestly believe that’s our priority? Jesus, Alfred, look at the city. She’s _burning_.” Bruce’s gaze sharpened, and his eyes searched Alfred’s face. “Did you know? When we were sipping tea and arranging Bruce Wayne’s little reappearance, did you know?”

“Of course I _knew_ , Master Wayne.” 

Bruce didn’t seem to notice that Alfred had moved close enough to land a blow without an easy block. He was busy looking thoroughly surprised at himself. “Of course you knew. You’ve lived it. Stupid,” Bruce muttered to himself. A plaintive appeal crossed his face, haloed in a wash of red light, every inch the sinner chasing after moments of grace. “You’ve been patrolling the city with the Batwing. You wouldn’t abandon Gotham.”

“No, sir, I would _not_.”

“Starting tonight, the people who die in Gotham. That’s on us. We have to have different priorities. We have to stop _this_ ,” Bruce’s hand knifed through the air toward the staircase.

_Governor Sante has declared Gotham City in a state of emergency, following the showdown last week between Superman and--_

Bruce’s eyes widened, and he blanched. “We have to stop him. Forget probabilities, Alfred. Forget the future. This is a certainty. Superman is a danger _now_. He’s my problem, I have to stop…”

He hated how often he was right about Bruce. 

His original plan seemed so meager in the face of Bruce’s grim fury. Introduce Bruce to Clark Kent, leave Bruce in Clark’s general vicinity, let Bruce be pulled into Clark’s orbit, reveal to Bruce that Clark is Superman. A momentary bad reaction from Bruce wouldn’t compromise Clark’s safety: their remaining scraps of kryptonite had been melted down into needle tips and scalpels and flown to the Fortress; the spear was hidden away in a government lab beyond even their reach.

Give Bruce time to plan, however--he would play the bloody god, demanding his due. 

As much as Alfred hated to admit it: although Clark Kent could charm paint off of a barn, no one alive could pull Bruce out of a tail-spin. Bruce may have started off merely angry about the video archive or the deactivated cameras, but he was quickly becoming unhinged. Alfred wondered if Bruce had given himself the mental space to grieve what he’d lost in the fight against Doomsday--certainty of Superman’s danger, the moral high ground for trying to kill him--if he’d had a single moment’s peace since he’d woken--if he remembered anything from wherever souls went when they died.

No. 

He didn’t suppose Bruce would have.

The cheater’s instinct in Alfred twinged to play his ace in the hole, but a good strategist didn’t throw his entire army into the canyon just because it was impossible to scale the cliffs. 

Abruptly, Alfred turned on his heel and climbed the stairs up to the Batcomputer, leaving behind the red glare of the Bat’s justice. He wasn’t going to win a fight on Bruce’s terms. 

A good strategist knew a hazard when they saw one, and simply took a different route. 

* (A) *

Bruce followed after him--a few paces behind and out of his eyeline like a skittish foal. He led his ward to the monitor tower, lit up with pundits, anchors, and twenty-four hour news tickers. 

_Civic authorities have cleared the flowers and candles from the--The third gathering this week has turned to rioting--rampant corruption in the GCPD--Gotham and Bludhaven--moving tribute to Superman by the UN Council--urged the United States not to declare--Superman responsible for--_

One by one, the voices cut out as Alfred closed the news feeds until there was only the hum of power conduits and, further back in the gloom, the rustle of wings. 

“You should know better than to believe his press,” Alfred said, his shoulders hunched over the keyboard. “Gotham would be a smoking crater twice over if he hadn’t protected her. He is not our enemy. He’s a _hero_. Something that you may have forgotten, but it’s what you were too.”

Bruce set his jaw in that same uncompromising line he had three months ago, when he told Alfred he planned to bring the war to Superman. “He felt responsible,” Bruce said steadily, his gaze never wavering. 

The showman in Bruce had always thought going all-in lent his most outrageous lies the air of credibility. To the contrary, Alfred knew Bruce was never so resolute, except when he was posturing. Or lying. Alfred snorted. “ _I_ felt responsible. He felt that we could do better. What do you really know about him, hmm? You can’t honestly tell me that you have the same opinion of him as you did three months ago. You saved the world with him, for god’s sake.” 

“This isn’t a quid pro quo, Alfred. This is about what happens when he decides the rules don’t apply to him.” 

“Rubbish!” Alfred slammed his palm against the desk. “I told him: ‘Do you know the first thing that Bruce will do when he wakes up? He’ll try to kill you, after he tears me a new one for installing unapproved tech.’ And do you know what he said to me--?” 

“No one else dies,” Bruce repeated quietly. 

“Yes. Over your broken, bleeding body. No one else dies. Miracles have been accomplished with quarter of that conviction, Master Wayne.” 

Bruce crossed his arms. Disconcertingly, the crest bunched and flexed with his chest the same way it would when Clark came to the house suited up, delivering terse updates from the Antarctic lab. For a moment, Bruce resembled a sulky Superman in black and silver, disappointed with the latest cell cultures--determined that a new test would have more promising results. Only, Alfred had never seen a expression so quintessentially and self-sabotagingly gloomy on Clark’s face. 

“So--what? You want me to welcome him with open arms?” 

The memory of Bruce as a sullen teenager took some of the bite out of his disbelieving tone, but Alfred remained tense. For unlike his sullen teenage self, Bruce had the power and the infrastructure to make good on his vendettas.

Of course, Alfred never had trod carefully around his ward, and he mustered his most unctuous tone: “I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to welcome him. But yes, I do think you owe him.” Bruce looked mutinous. “A chance, that’s all. Talk to him before you condemn him, sir.”

There was a terrifying blankness to Bruce’s expression. His eyes unfocused, as he stared at something over Alfred’s shoulder. For a few tense seconds, he didn’t meet Alfred’s gaze, didn’t respond, didn’t breathe. An almost imperceptible shudder traveled through Bruce’s body, snapping him out of his reverie. “Him and me,” Bruce said repressively, “we don’t really have much to say to each other.”

Alfred rounded on Bruce as quick as he could push his unstretched muscles, which was not fast enough to beat a vigilante on the worst of days...but Bruce was either ignoring or unaware of the strange blankness, so maybe... 

The jab sailed into Bruce’s personal space without a single block thrown. Alfred stopped the strike an inch away from Bruce’s throat, and stretched his thumb out to Bruce’s neck like a knife. “You bloody well _do_.” Alfred’s tone softened. “Your reflexes are appalling. When was the last time I got the drop on you? Twenty-four years ago?”

“Seventeen.” The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitched, as close to agreement as he was likely to get. “Khartoum.”

Alfred had gotten this far--he decided to push his luck even further. “An evening in, Master Wayne?” he suggested mildly, as though Bruce had a say in the matter.

Bruce stiffened. “The city, Alfred, we can’t…”

Alfred dug his thumb into the meat of Bruce’s neck to emphasize his point. “If you so much as consider patrolling tonight, the drone will restrain you, and you _will_ regret it.” 

* * * 

* (B) *

The first thing he saw was Alfred standing over him, with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. 

“If you were out on the street, you’d be dead by now,” Alfred said, holding out a hand. The fact that it was true didn’t take the sting out of it. 

Bruce ignored the outstretched hand, and staggered to his feet, shaking off the daze of that last punch. It had cracked across his jaw faster than he’d expected. 

“Microgaps in my attention,” Bruce said shortly. “They’ll improve with time, or I’ll learn to compensate.”

Alfred had traded the coverall for sparring gear, which marginally improved his speed, whereas Bruce had thrown on sweatpants and shirt (to temper the fun Alfred was having at his expense) which slowed him fractionally. Not enough to explain why Bruce failed to counter Alfred’s attacks. For every punch, kick, or block he threw, the air fought him. His attacks landed too late; his blocks intercepted Alfred’s punches only after they’d already landed. 

Bruce sank down into a defensive stance. He had convinced Alfred that testing his reflexes would be an acceptable alternative to patrol. So far, all points were in favor of Alfred’s assertion, _you aren’t ready, Master Wayne._ Bruce had said, _so catch me up,_ like three months of life lived in his city could be covered with a simple debrief. No amount of recounted shareholder meetings or failed LexCorp takeover bids would close that chasm. 

Breathing in deeply, Bruce reached for his center. His feet connected to the sparring mats and lifted, shifting his weight forward as Alfred backed off to circle him.

He allowed Alfred to fall into his blind spot. He wouldn’t be able to resist the easy hit. “Tell me about Gotham.”

Alfred sprang at him. Bruce allowed gravity to pull his body backward, as he dodged the flying jab. He rolled under Alfred’s arm span, and retreated. 

“It’s not sporting if you don’t throw any punches back.” Alfred began another slow, wide circle around Bruce. 

“Every battle is won or lost before it’s ever fought,” Bruce countered. He lowered his center of balance, his hands up--alert but deceptively limp--in the open-handed stance of the Southern Praying Mantis.

Alfred snorted. “Pull the other one. Your Praying Mantis is worse than your Tiger.”

Bruce smirked. “Tell me that when you’ve lost.” 

* (B) *

Alfred tossed him, rolled him, knocked him flat on his ass more times that he could count. Each time he fell, he felt the hard smack of concrete beneath the sparring mats. He should have stopped an hour ago if he wanted to be in red carpet condition tomorrow. His bruises would have bruises by now. 

But--all he felt was the slide of the smoother-than-glass fabric against his ribs as he flipped backwards into a low crouch. He rolled his shoulders, and reset his sparring space. The fabric whispered over his skin, flexed with him. He gritted his teeth. How could Kal stand this slow torture? 

More importantly, how was he going to end the match without yielding? 

“You’re not telling me something,” Bruce said, shifting his weight onto his back leg, raising his arms into a guard position. His shoulders came up, as did his lead foot. He tapped it a few times, teasing a kick at Alfred, who skirted it, widening his circle. 

“How artfully vague, sir,” Alfred countered. “But you won’t beat me with your Tiger.” 

“We’ll see,” Bruce said.

* (B) *

He didn’t beat Alfred with his Tiger. 

Despite the chilly damp of the cave, Bruce felt charged up by the practice. Sweat (and a little blood, Alfred had landed two good hits to his nose) should have been pouring down his brow, but he felt like he’d barely warmed up. Nevertheless, Bruce knew when to throw in the towel. “I’m beat,” he announced. “Calling it.” 

Bruce turned toward the lockers at the back of the room, careful not to move too quickly. The easy surrender didn’t arouse Alfred’s suspicion. He was rewarded with a sweep to the ankles. Bruce caught himself as he toppled, and pivoted on his palm, arching his body in his own roundhouse sweep. The grunt that Alfred made as he fell to the mats sounded as sweet as victory. 

“At least you fight as dirty as you ever do,” Alfred groused, pulling himself up into a loose cross-legged position. He rubbed at his shoulder blades. “Going to feel that one for a week.” 

Bruce offered him a hand up. _That_ was met with suspicion. “We’re done for the night,” he said warmly. Alfred took the hand, and Bruce pulled him to his feet with a light tug.

“Good to see that you haven’t lost your strength,” Alfred said, with some surprise. 

Bruce gave him a noncommittal shrug. Alfred surprised him by turning it into a fierce hug--a blink and then it was gone out-pouring of raw affection and heartbreak from his guardian. “Let an old man be sentimental for a moment, Master Wayne,” he said roughly. 

When Alfred pulled back, Bruce let him. Alfred had seemed more than willing to answer his questions in the living room, with Clark Kent to buffer their interactions. But something had turned Alfred reticent. They hadn’t talked about Kal, the suit, anything to do with his injury. The persistent gulf between the present and the past remained between them.

Bruce leveled a cool gaze at him, and Alfred hesitated. 

“I trust I’ve proved that you aren’t fit to suit up,” he said carefully. 

“Alfred.” The word was a whole sentence: whatever it was Bruce needed to know, it was best that it came out sooner rather than later. 

Traces of Alfred’s service in the SAS still lingered in his posture and bearing: whenever he had bad news, he’d straighten his back, hands to his sides, as if he were delivering a military debrief to his commander. That was why Bruce started forward when Alfred’s shoulders sagged--he mistook it for fatigue.

Alfred waved him away.

“Gotham licked her wounds after Doomsday, but that was only the beginning. The world turned its scrutiny onto Gotham and saw how corrupt she had become. The GCPD has been hopelessly compromised for years--willing to turn a blind eye to violence in the name of justice--which had more often than not worked out in our favor. When Batman’s death--” Bruce snorted. “--became a matter of public record, in their desperation to retain control, the GCPD lashed out.” 

“Jesus.” This wasn’t even on the scale of _bad for Gotham_ before this evening. Bruce had seen flashes of the footage on the new feeds. Police raids. Brutality. Riots. It hadn’t seemed possible they were all his city. “What’s the status of--” Bruce reached for the memory of the cases he had been working prior to the Superman issue. “The Odessa crew? The Sabatino family? The Costa Nostra?”

Alfred’s laugh was mirthless. “We don’t have reliable information on any of them. The gangs pushed back, the mob pushed back harder, and each are swallowing up territory that even the police raids aren’t willing to enter.”

“Sounds like a job for Superman,” Bruce said flatly. “Gotham’s hurting, and he’s off plucking the occasional flood victim from their roof?”

Alfred grimaced. “Gotham’s ahead of the curve in one respect. Officially, Superman is _persona non grata_ in the city. Unofficially, he’s been--busy with a personal matter.”

“Personal matter,” Bruce deadpanned. 

“Review the mission logs if you like, or talk to the man--honestly, sir, I don’t care which you do,” Alfred said hotly. “The National Guard are mobilizing, Gotham PD is digging in, and the gangs control the East End. None of this is Superman’s fault. It was on us, sir. We maintained an uneasy peace, but it _was_ peace, as much as this city’s ever known. With the Batman gone, there was no stop-gap against the coming wave.” Alfred trailed off. “What I need to know... do you trust me, Bruce?”

Bruce’s knee-jerk reaction was to reply with an honest _no_. Alfred had flagrantly violated his trust. Kryptonian technology in the house, god knows what done to the cave. Surveillance compromised, video logs purged. In the matter of planetary survival, Bruce had to keep his own counsel; and the decisions that Alfred had made had left a lingering doubt in his mind.

The way Alfred had tensed up, Bruce could tell that he was expecting to be told off.

“Yes,” he said. Because as deep in his bones as the need to protect Gotham, he trusted Alfred with his life. Nothing had changed that. 

“Then trust me. Batman can’t save Gotham, not right now. But maybe Bruce Wayne can.”

“Bruce Wayne?” he repeated. The words stung his mouth. Bruce Wayne’s grasp of politics was about as nuanced as his broad, uncomplicated face, and his leverage amongst the power brokers had dwindled as they realized his wild youth was not a phase. “How can _Bruce Wayne_ save Gotham?”

Alfred patted his cheek tenderly. “My dear boy… show up tomorrow night with a reporter on your arm and find out.”

* (B) *

They hit the showers. Bruce stripped off his workout gear and stepped under the warm spray and Alfred disappeared into the attached wash room. The suit had started to feel like a second skin. Sweat didn’t seem to stick to it, though dirt had collected in the micro-grooves on its surface. 

Bruce scrubbed down efficiently, but as the water ran through his hair, his motions slowed as he drifted off into thought. 

Gotham. Although he couldn’t see how Bruce Wayne could stop an all-out turf war, he trusted Alfred with his city. If Alfred said Bruce Wayne could stop a speeding train, Bruce might seek a second opinion and a back-up plan, but he sure wouldn’t be averse to trying. Gotham, more than ever, needed both of them. What prickled at his conscience were those two phrases in close conjunction: _ahead of the curve_ and _persona non grata_. Superman had done something to his city to be banned from it. If corruption ran deep--through more than just the police force--it could simply be the paranoia of Gotham's power-brokers… but _ahead of the curve_ implied that more was coming. Was it more than the news cycle's need for controversy? Could there be truth to the story-- _would_ Superman be declared an enemy combatant? Bruce braced an arm against the shower wall. 

_What have you done, Kal?_

The shower felt nothing like the cold rain dripping down the channels of the cowl, but Bruce tipped his face up, and a kind of peace descended. The certainty of the abandoned courtyard returned to him. He had gone to the old GCPD building to kill a god--and he had seen that god broken before him, even if Bruce had been the one on his knees. 

Bruce shut off the tap, and watched the water bead on the surface of the suit, catching the light as it evaporated. Waterproof and watertight, it glistened under the track lighting. Before Alfred returned, Bruce wrapped a towel around his waist. 

“Getting comfortable in the enemy’s skin?” 

Bruce hummed a noncommittal response, which earned a pointed huff from Alfred. 

They made plans for the morning (Alfred would arrive promptly at 9am to begin preparing for the night’s gala), and parted at the foot of the stairs. Alfred headed towards the elevator, while Bruce trailed down the ramp towards the small room he’d installed in the cave, for those nights when he couldn’t bear to sleep in Bruce Wayne’s bed. 

He wasn’t thinking of sleep. He wasn’t thinking of much at all. 

Bruce knew his way through this room by touch. He found the edge of the bed, and sat down on it heavily. The towel slipped to the floor. His breath was coming fast, and then faster. Right. 

Bruce slapped the control next to the headboard, and the concrete door of the bedroom-slash-panic room slid shut and a dim overhead light activated.

He stared down at the suit like it was evidence at a crime scene. It looked wetter and sharper than it had under the water. His fingers traced over the obsidian lines that converged at the gold buckle. A thick bulge was visible beneath the fabric, stretching the suit’s lines. His cock was interested, but not fully erect. 

How was this going to work--? Unless he wanted to experience another icepick through his heart, undressing was out of the cards. The Kryptonian material felt frictionless when it had slipped over his skin earlier--but he had touched Kal through the suit, and given Bruce every indication of feeling pleasure from it. 

Bruce didn’t like to come in the Batsuit, but there had been times when, exhausted from patrol, he’d collapsed in this room half-dressed and had brought himself off in the leather gauntlets. When he dragged his fingers over his hip, he didn’t expect to feel anything like the rough grip of his batsuit gloves. 

It felt nothing like that. 

Color bloomed across his vision, as a wet, glossy sensation slid across his skin. 

He stroked a hand up the side of his cock. Pleasure shot through him like light. His cock lengthened against the material, the frictionless roll replaced by a long, satisfying drag along the Kryptonian fabric. A faint sound tickled the edge of his hearing, silk hitting a piano wire. 

So… maybe intent counted for something. 

He spread his legs, bracing his feet against the bed. Bruce loosened his control, and let a small amount of the desire he had felt on the rooftop out of its rigorously contained box. That unbearable lightness swept through him. A long, firm stroke of his palm down the length of his erection, and his head swam with pleasure/color/sound. 

God. It was strange, sure, but his body seemed to be on board with getting off in Kal’s suit. 

This wasn’t going to be a quick jerk to knock him out after patrol. He had all night, if he wanted. But only if he wanted. He didn’t have to play the tentative lover, either. It was just him and the four walls. 

Bruce palmed his erection roughly, and his other hand gripped his thigh. Like connecting a circuit--that overwhelming, oceanic blue washed his vision again. He bucked hard against his hand, and was rewarded with another pleasurable sensation. 

His breath felt punched out of him, panting. 

Mad lust rose in him again. He wanted to seize Kal out of the air, to hold him fast to the ground, to grapple with him across the blasted ruin of the Gotham Port, across all of the shattered battlefields that stretched out in front of him, a Ganymede armed and triumphant, forcing Zeus to yield. Kal on his knees, blood streaking down his temple, smirking up at him--his hand on Bruce’s hip, as he yanked him down, and--and-- _no._

Jumping up from the bed, Bruce threw himself up against a wall, because fuck, he wanted to feel his body against the concrete, grinding him into the masonry (was it his imagination, or was the concrete _giving_ underneath him?), before he pulled his fist back and--

“K---” He fought down the name that wanted to tear from his throat. He refused to beg for it. “It was always going to be this way,” Bruce whispered instead, eyes snapping closed on a spark of pleasure. 

The past collided with his imagination. The image warehouse was waiting for him. Kal’s spine arched in pleasure, the ripple of shadow across his throat. The strong line of Kal’s chest, Bruce’s fingers that hadn’t tangled in his hair, the bloody barrage of punches he hadn't thrown at Kal’s jaw, the feel of his cock trapped against Kal’s thigh, bucking against the immovable line of Kal’s body. _Yes._

(That wasn’t how it happened. 

It barely mattered.) 

Bruce groaned, and ground his clothed cock against Kal’s skin. He thrust against him, again, again, again, until Kal seized him around the waist--the inexorable heaviness pressing him down, the mass of a star, fierce and burning. It was always going to be this way. Violent. Like the clash of--

( _You’re shaking,_ Kal had whispered into his hair, as tenderly as Bruce might say, _you’re beautiful._ )

He was imagining it; Kal wouldn’t want this. He was imagining it; and it didn’t matter, because Bruce did. 

Bruce tipped his head back in a long, low groan, as he raked his fingers across his erection. Then took himself in hand. His body didn’t know what to do with pleasure: too many efficient wanks, too many nights playing the lover who ignored his own release. He was trembling, overloaded with sensation--a few strong jerks, and it was over. 

He bit down any traitorous cries as he came. A small warmth bloomed in the suit. He waited for that telltale stickiness on his thighs, but he felt nothing. His cock spasmed and grew harder. 

Okay then, he thought. Round two. 

Down below the glass fantasy of his life, locked away from the Bat--it didn’t matter what he cried out in the dark. Desire could stay within these walls, contained as rigorously as pleasure or grief. Still, there was indulgence and there was control. Bruce refused to choke out the name as he came a second time. It was the worst kind of magical thinking--that his silence now would buy back his objectivity when he returned to the world above--but he had made a promise in the battering rain of Gotham. Should the months he slept prove Kal a tyrant, Bruce had every intention of keeping it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And that concludes this chapter of Bruce Makes Poor Decisions As A Lifestyle. 
> 
> The plot is humming along (and the next section is going to be fun. LOOKING AT YOU, SUIT PORN!ANON), but I'm going to have to take a break to focus on the DCEU exchange. Spirit (and words) willing, I should have another update for you in the second or third week in October as we march ever onward towards (maybe, probably, actually ) fulfilling this prompt!


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